From The Ashes
by KeroZombie
Summary: AU. Saki is a lonely lumberjack living by herself in a deep forest after being forced out of her home village. Then one day a storm rolls in, and with that storm comes a beautiful girl! Together they decide to confront both of their pasts and face their demons once and for all. Saki x Ai
1. New Beginnings

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Zombie Land Saga or any of its characters. This work is a fan-work offered free of charge, and I make no money from it whatsoever. **

_A/N: It's been a while! Had this half-finished almost 4 months ago but mental health problems held me back. Thankfully I'm feeling a lot better now :)_

_You don't see a lot of Saki x Ai because Saki's usually too busy hitting on our favourite egg-head. Hopefully this can scratch your Saki x Ai itch! It'll probably end up being around three chapters long. It's all in Saki's perspective - I'm just too addicted to writing from her POV :P _

_Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!  
_

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**Chapter 1: New Beginnings**

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Anyone who knows me knows that there's nothing I love more than beating the shit out of a tree. Give me an axe and I'll go to town on one of those fuckers any day of the week. Maybe it's the adrenaline, maybe I'm just a sociopath when it comes to nature; I don't know and I don't care.

Now normally when it comes to trees I find 'em pretty boring apart from when I'm laying into them. But there was this one tree, this real old, white, almost silver tree that I refused to take the axe to. It'd been around for as long as I could remember. It was the tallest, most beautiful tree in the forest by far, and you couldn't miss it, cos when all the other trees would fall into shadow at night, that silver tree would glow bright as a full moon.

Being a lumberjack, I didn't really have any friends. I didn't have any friends before I became a lumberjack either, but that's besides the point. What I'm trying to say is I was lonely, so that tree, crazy as it sounds, was kinda my only friend. Maybe it's fucked up to kill all your friend's siblings and use them as firewood but I didn't think about it that deeply. So I'd go about my day, chopping down trees whenever I got the urge or got pissed off at some random thing (or both), then I'd go back to the silver tree and just sit beneath it. Sometimes I'd even talk to it.

"You're one hell of a good lookin' tree," I'd say, "if I was a tree I'd tree-marry you in a heartbeat."

One time I even hugged the tree. I dunno man, you do weird shit when you're lonely. There was a village about five hours walk away that had plenty of other humans I _could've _talked to, but I didn't like to go there and they didn't like me being there. It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that when you fuck around with the mayor's daughter it gets you into deep shit. I have no regrets. That girl is smokin' hot and as gay as they come so if he thinks she's settling down with _anyone_ let alone some prince charming in future he's got a one-way ticket to disappointment city.

I had a pretty normal life, or at least a stable one. Wake up, kill trees, burn logs in my cabin, sleep, repeat. Sometimes I'd wander down to the big river that runs through the far side of the forest or sneak into town to buy supplies but mostly it was the same-old, same-old, day in, day out.

Then one night this real motherfucker of a storm rolled in. I was in my cabin burning logs (as always) when the rain started to fall. At first I didn't notice it, but when your roof starts shakin' like it's being stomped on by an army of tiny goblins it's kinda hard to ignore. I looked out my window and sure enough, the forest was being absolutely pummeled by rain. The trees were being beaten so viciously that their leaves were being torn right off the branches. It didn't scare me, pretty much nothing scares me anymore, but then I thought about the silver tree and my heart started racing. What if the storm tore it out of the ground? What if the rain knocked all of its silver leaves off? I shouldn't have worried, I mean what even was the point of worrying? It's not like I could've done anything. But it didn't matter. I couldn't leave it. I couldn't just sit in my hut not knowing what was happening to the silver tree. So I put on my red coat, made sure my hair was tied back nice and tight, then I walked out into the darkness.

The rain had completely fucked the ground. Every step I took I sunk a few inches into the mud. The raindrops were full-on rain _boulders_. I nearly broke a finger shielding my face from the assault. If the trees weren't takin' the bulk of the attack I'd have been a pile of mush in the ground within seconds. The wind was fierce too. Less a howl and more a roar, making even the tree _trunks_ creak and groan. More than once I was dragged off my feet and thrown down into the mud. I was starting to get real worried for my friend, the silver tree.

After an endless march through the wet hellzone the storm had created I was finally approaching my dendric buddy. The storm had settled down for a moment, so that you could just about see the moon peering through the clouds. It was a full moon, and it cast a glow that reached right down to the forest floor. I trudged up a hill, climbed over the roots of a huge oak tree, then there I was in the small clearing around my only friend in the world: the silver tree.

By some miracle, not a single leaf was out of place. It glowed just as brightly as ever, perhaps even more brightly, and as the moonlight hit it, even its leaves shimmered silver in the breeze. It was safe. I breathed a sigh of relief and instantly lost all strength in my legs. I let myself slump into the damp grass. Without the adrenaline I was totally pooped, but it was worth it to know that my friend was safe.

"You're stronger than you look," I told it.

Suddenly dark clouds started swirling around overhead, blocking out all moonlight till everything was pitch black save for the pale glow of the tree. I expected more wind and rain. Instead from the clouds came an enormous lightning bolt. It was so bright that even seeing it for just a split second sent stabbing pain right through my eyes, forcing me to look away. The almighty boom of the thunder was so loud it reverberated through my entire body. Then the rain came. I didn't hear it falling, the ringing in my ears made sure of that, but the heavy pebbles of rain are unmistakable when they're smacking you in the head. I felt dizzy. My fingertips were numb. Even with my eyes closed I could still see the white hot energy of the lightning on my eyelids. On my knees I crawled towards where I thought the silver tree was. I dunno what I was thinking. I wasn't really thinking at all. The forest didn't normally have that kinda shit happen to it.

As the lightning's afterimage faded I opened my eyes. I'm not one for cryin', but when I saw it I couldn't stop my throat from closing up. The silver tree had been split clean in two. Its glowing white trunk was burnt black, and its branches were all bent and broken. What few leaves were left were still glowing meekly, as if they were trying to stay strong for the rest of tree's sake. But then I saw something strange: in the middle of the black maw left by the lightning was what looked like a human girl. She was glowing, like the tree used to. She was also covered in nasty red marks all over her (butt naked) body.

"Uhh..." I said (I'm not really a big talker), but her eyes were closed, and she wasn't movin'. For a second I wondered if she was dead, but then she started stretching and yawning as if she'd just woken up from a nice nap.

Then she saw me and screamed.

"Woah, SHIT!" I screamed back, "you don't need to-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

She tried to back away but she was lodged in the tree. I could see every inch of her. God damn she was beautiful. Is it weird that _that_ was my first thought? My brain was like 'holy fuck this girl's a ten outta ten stone cold stunner' even though she was burnt and bleeding and screaming at me. Maybe I need to see a shrink.

Another bolt of lightning cut through the clouds. She flinched and covered her ears as the thunder rolled through the forest. The rain bullets were starting to give me a headache. I got to my feet and offered her a hand.

"We've gotta get out of here or we'll both be fucked. Come on."

It took all my strength to keep my eyes focused on her face and not her bare chest. I could tell from her eyes that she was still totally out of her mind, but despite that she took my hand. I pulled her up, but it was no good. Every time she tried to stand her knees gave out. We tried three times total, then I said,

"Fuck it, I'll carry you."

She mumbled something incoherent but I didn't have time to hear her opinion. I grabbed her butt (COMPLETELY INNOCENTLY) and hoisted her onto my back. She yelped as I lifted her up but otherwise she didn't complain. As I trudged back through the mud she even wrapped her arms around my neck.

Who knew that all it took to get a hot girl into your bed was a good storm and some third degree burns? I sure didn't know. I sure didn't know what the hell to _do_, either. I had some bandages lying around _somewhere_, but I couldn't remember exactly where and I could easily have been wrong. I checked all my drawers but there was nothing, I checked under my bed but it was just junk.

"Water..."

On my knees on the wooden floor, I wondered for a second if I was hearing things. But then she said it again,

"Water... please..."

Those were the first actual words I'd heard her speak that night. Out in the forest, all the water comes from the well. Thankfully I had some stored away from when the weather was less shitty. I got a wooden mug and filled it with lukewarm water. It wasn't perfect but it'd have to do.

"Here you go," I said, more gruffly than I meant to. She didn't open her eyes. "You're gonna need to sit up to drink it," I explained, but still she didn't move an inch. It's not like I could blame her; if I had injuries like that I'd probably be dead. I realised I had to do something, but I didn't have a clue _what_. Acting on instinct, I gently placed a hand under her head and lifted her just enough so that she wasn't totally prone, then I put the mug to her lips. I figured that'd do the trick. It took her a while, but she drank the whole mug right down. 'Good job, me', I thought to myself. Then she said,

"That was disgusting."

I was a bit disappointed, to say the least.

"Hey, that's fresher water than you'll get in the city you know!"

She opened her eyes and gave me a serious look, "Where are we?"

"In a forest."

"A forest..."

"It's a pretty big forest."

Outside, the rain had finally started to settle. So much had fallen that the mud was filled with dozens of lake-sized puddles of water. That was gonna be fun to deal with in the morning.

"You've got some pretty nasty injuries," I noted, "now that the rain has stopped maybe we should get you to a doctor."

"No..."

"I don't want you dying on me."

"...where are my clothes?"

"Uh, you didn't have any?"

She frowned, "That's impossible, I had them when I left. Did you steal them!?"

"No! Why the hell would I do that?"

She turned her head and glared at me, then she remembered she was still butt naked and wrapped the blankets around herself. I could feel heat rushing to my cheeks. Didn't realise I'd become so thirsty in the time since I hooked up with the mayor's daughter.

"Look, I didn't steal-"

"What's your name?"

"Hm?"

"Your name."

"Saki, Nikaido Saki. Yours?"

"I... think my name is Ai."

She looked at me like I had a pimple right on the tip of my nose.

"What are you giving me that look for?"

"Nothing, it's just I-"

"Also, how the hell did you end up inside my silver tree?"

_My _silver tree... it felt weird to say it out loud.

"What do you mean?"

"The tree I found you in. The lightning split it clean in half!"

Her expression stiffened as I said the word 'lightning', "I really can't remember. I don't remember being in a tree."

"Okay, I mean, I guess I can understand that, given the circumstances. Is there anything you_ do _remember?"

"It's difficult, like when a word is on the tip of your tongue, or you've forgotten something you wanted to tell someone. I can feel it there, but..."

"Don't worry about it."

Maybe her memory would be clearer once she'd had some rest, I thought.

_Or not..._

We sat in silence for some time while the fire crackled away in the corner. I couldn't stop myself staring at the wounds on her face. Still damp with fresh blood, they glistened in the firelight. Thankfully she didn't seem to notice. She was so still, and quiet, with her eyes closed, that at one point I really thought she might've died right there in front of me. Then she started fidgeting around, and after getting comfy and adjusting the covers so they just about covered her chin, asked me matter-of-factly,

"Can I borrow your bed?"

The ridiculousness of the situation wasn't lost on me,

"You're already in it, so knock yourself out."

She closed her eyes again without saying another word. I felt kinda creepy watching her, but it was also kinda relaxing, just watching her breathe. It was more relaxing now that I knew she wasn't _dead_. I got up and poured myself a mug of water. 'I suppose tonight I'll be sleeping on the floor', I thought, then from behind me I heard her ask,

"Also... could I borrow some of your clothes as well?"

"Uh, sure," I replied, "I'll have some out for you in the morning."

"Thank you."

I avoided mentioning that I hadn't washed any of my clothes in months. I didn't mention that those same clothes were gonna be my pillow for the night either, but as I'd given her the bed I figured it was fair enough.

In the chaos I'd almost forgotten about the silver tree, but when I laid my head down on my mud-encrusted shirts it all came back to punch me in the gut. I couldn't count how many days I'd spent just sitting beneath its boughs, relaxing in the shade. I remember one year we had a typhoon so rough that it got half-lifted out of the ground – but it still survived. How the _fuck _did a lightning bolt kill it off? Of all the trees that asshole storm could choose to strike down, it had to pick my one. It would take years, decades for it to regrow to how it once was, if it even regrew at all. I thought of the leaves fading out in the sodden grass and a lump started to grow in my throat.

Then on the ceiling I saw a strange, pale blue light. The light flickered ever so slightly as if it was caught in a breeze. It mingled with the dull orange from the fireplace, like a sunset reflected in a river. 'I'm dreaming already', I thought, but it didn't feel like a dream.

"Tree..." I whispered into the darkness, "is that you buddy? You come to say goodbye?"

The light got brighter and brighter. It started to pulsate on the ceiling.

"It's been good," I said, "You're probably the best friend I ever had, you know."

The light started to drift off to one side, and suddenly I realised where it had been coming from. It wasn't a message from the tree. It was the girl. She was glowing, just like the silver tree's leaves used to. Her whole body was glowing beneath the covers. I sat up, my mouth wide open.

"Holy shit," I blurted out without thinking, but she didn't seem to notice. I watched in amazement as the wounds on her face went from bright red to dull pink. Skin raced over the exposed flesh and closed up every last gap till everything was sealed over and only faint scars remained.

My mind was racing. I had an alien or fairy or witch or something crazy like that sleeping in _my _bed, in _my _hut. Maybe there was a reason she was in the tree, I thought. I mean she _glowed _like the tree, but _why_? I fell asleep trying to work it out and had dreams full of thunder and lightning and puddles that led to huge pits that took you to the center of the earth.

I was already awake by the time sunlight was trickling down through the leaves that survived the storm. The forest was a mess. I was considering chopping some trees to relax but when I saw the carnage before me it really killed the mood. I wasn't gonna chop a tree when it was down, so to speak. The forest floor was lined with fruit and pinecones and other tree shit that wasn't ripe and now never would be. It reminded me: I only had enough food to feed one person.

"Fuck," I said. You get used to speaking to yourself when you live alone in a forest long enough.

Normally I'd go gather something from the woods in a situation like this. 'A situation like this'... who am I kiddin'? This shit didn't happen to me. I lived alone, in a forest, talked to trees – I didn't get visitors. But I had one _now_, a visitor who glowed in the dark and healed life-threatening wounds in her sleep. I mean hell, maybe she didn't even _need_ food. I could just sit and watch her as the sun rises... listen to her breathe, close my eyes and imagine...

I inched the door closed as I stepped out into the wet and the mud. It shut with only the slightest little creak, so quiet it almost got drowned out by the birdsong outside.

'Glad you guys can be so peppy after all that shit last night', I thought. Birds are always peppy, or hysterical. You so much as fart in their direction and they're off, screeching at you from the tree branches. The bigger, uglier birds that hung around the deeper parts of the woods were so used to my shit by that point that they didn't bother to squawk at me when I stepped into their territory anymore. They just kind of accepted that whichever tree I wanted to smack the crap out of was a goner.

I went to find the river that ran south of my hut. It didn't take long; the river had swelled up WAY beyond its usual size.

"I shoulda guessed."

There was no chance of me catchin' a fish in that nonsense. It was obvious: the forest was fucked, and my chances of getting any food from it were equally as fucked.

"There's gotta be _something_..."

And something there was. A big, ugly sabretooth rabbit was gnawing away at some poor bird's corpse on the other side of the bloated river. I had my axe, but I couldn't exactly just stroll over and say 'hi' to the nasty little critter. I considered _throwing_ the axe, but long range wasn't my forte. If I could just get close enough, I thought, I could _really _give it something to chew on.

Then out of nowhere something flew past my left ear. I ducked instinctively, figuring it was just an excitable bird. Then I head a guttural screech and a thud in the distance. I looked up; the rabbit was out cold. From behind me came a voice,

"It's dead."

There was something familiar about the voice, but I couldn't place it. I turned around, and standing before me, clad in my own dirty clothes, was the girl I found in the tree.

"Ai, what the hell!? That was _you_?"

"I hit it with a rock."

"Yeah you hit it all right, but damn, with a _rock_? From that _distance_?"

"It's strange, but my body moved on its own. I just knew how to do it, knew the angle to throw it at, the speed..."

I stood up, "Well it's a good thing your body _did _move on its own, cos that little bastard is our dinner tonight."

"What _is _it?"

"You killed it and you don't even know what it is?"

She crossed her arms, "I could tell you were hunting it, so I thought I'd help. So what is it?"

I sighed, "It's a sabretooth rabbit. They're ugly but they taste alright."

"Really? It doesn't look anything like the rabbits _I _know."

"Trust me, it's a rabbit."

"But how does it make mochi?"

"Excuse me?"

"Rabbits make mochi don't they? Every night they hop around and make mochi and celebrate together."

"You're thinking of moon rabbits. They're not real. No one lives on the moon."

"But I remember seeing them make mochi..."

How do you reply to that? 'Yeah I can believe you did, cos last night I saw your entire body glow in the dark'. I started to think of what to say but I didn't get time to say it cos she strode right past me and into the river.

"Hey, that's deeper than it looks!" I called out, but she just swam in, somehow unaffected by the current. What the hell was up with this girl? In no time she'd grabbed the rabbit and was making her way back through the muddy water.

When she was back on land she held it out to me and asked,

"Do you know how to cook it?"

"Are you kiddin' me? How do you think I survived out here all by myself for so long!"

I fetched a few dry logs from my hut and lit a fire outside under the midday sun. Then with some old rope I strung up a washing line between my hut and a nearby tree and put out Ai's wet clothes to dry. Those were the only other clothes I had apart from the ones I was wearing, so she had to wrap herself in a spare blanket I had lying around while they dried, but she didn't seem to mind. With that sorted, I skewered the sabretooth rabbit on a metal rod and hoisted it over the flames. These things take a while to cook so you've gotta start early if you want it ready for dinner. Knowing we were in for the long haul, me and Ai dragged a couple of chairs out from indoors, stuck 'em into the crusty, muddy earth so they wouldn't move, and sat round the fire.

"Do you normally cook like this?" she asked me.

"Nahhh. If I want meat I just go buy it from town, when I can be bothered."

"Why didn't you do that today?"

"It's a long walk. Didn't wanna leave you on your own," I replied, though it was only half true. "Anyway," I continued, "don't worry about it. We got food in the end, thanks to you."

"You don't need to thank me."

"Seriously though, where the fuck did you learn to throw like that?"

"I've always had good eyes."

"What, you never had to practice?"

"I don't think so. I can't remember."

She stared down at her mud-encrusted boots (which we hadn't put out to dry).

"What _can _you remember?"

She sighed, "I'm not sure I can remember anything from before we met. All I know is my name."

"Come on Ai, there must be _something _in there."

She closed her eyes, "I think... I used to like dancing."

"Dancing?"

"It's like seeing your reflection in a river. I can feel myself dancing. I can hear my parents' voices, see the palace, white and shining all around me... I remember now, the floor was so cold, everything was cold, and quiet... and I remember singing actually, yes I can almost-"

"Hold on, you used to dance in a _palace_?"

"I think it was my home."

"Holy shit! So you're rich?"

"Well, I'm not sure, I-"

"And it was cold, like on a mountain kinda cold?"

"No, it was different. Nothing like a mountain."

"What other cold places _are_ there though?"

"I don't know, it's heavy. The memories are so heavy in my head, it's like lifting a boulder."

"Well then we have to keep prodding till the boulder shifts! You've gotta have guts if you wanna-"

"Stop. No more questions. Please, I don't wanna talk about this anymore," she said, scrunching the blanket up in her hands.

"Oh... sure, no problem," I replied, realising I'd gone too far. This was always how it went. I always pissed someone off one way or another. It was just a matter of time. My big mouth would always say some stupid shit without thinking. 'This is why you live alone, dipshit', I thought as I watched her gaze forlornly at the roasting sabretooth carcass. For the first time in forever I actually had a girl over in my shitty little hut, and the best I could do was serve up torched rabbit with mud and a side order of awkward conversation.

The rabbit tasted alright. Nothing special but it wasn't awful. I guess you could say we had a lot in common in that respect. We ate in silence. She looked as exhausted as I felt. Her wounds had healed but the scars were still there, pale valleys carved into her skin. I know it's a weird but somehow, to me, it made her more beautiful.

"It got dark so quickly," she noted, looking up at the crimson sky.

She was right. The days were getting shorter. If the storm hadn't butchered the forest you'd be seeing the red leaves soon enough. The only tree that never lost its leaves was the silver tree. It was always there in full bloom, ready to start glowing as soon as the moon showed its face in the night sky.

"Ai," I said, "I want you to come with me, back to the tree. The one you landed in during the storm."

When I saw the fear in her eyes I knew her answer before she even said it.

"No, I can't. I'm sorry," she ran a finger across one of the scars on her cheek, "I can't explain it, but-"

"Then don't explain it. You need to rest anyway. I won't be long."

I got up from my chair. The fire was almost dead now. I could feel Ai watching me but I didn't return her gaze. It was stupid, I know, but hindsight is twenty-twenty and I was in a shitty mood. As I walked away I saw her in my mind's eye, I saw her there in the tree. Naked, scarred, but perfect all the same. An angel. An angel nestled in the burnt remains of the only thing I'd ever considered a friend in this world.

The birds were singing the same old tune as I trudged through the forest. Forests don't sleep at night, they only get louder. Even in winter they don't die. It takes a lot to kill a forest – and I should know, with the amount of trees I've massacred. I was tempted to go back and get my axe to let off some steam, but that wasn't what I needed. I didn't know what I needed. Like I said before, my life had always been very simple: chop trees, piss off humans, eat, sleep, repeat. Life has no complications when you live on your own. Being alone is easy. I thought it was, anyway. I was convinced of it. I didn't need anyone.

It didn't take long to reach the clearing. The silver tree was still there, charred and split in two, but its leaves had already started to rot into the earth. Although it was bathed in moonlight, not a single part of it was glowing. I got down on my knees and placed my hand on its bark. My throat felt tight, and tears were slowly working their way out of the corners of my eyes. I'm not a crying person. I don't get upset about things like this, about a fucking _tree _being struck by lightning. I chop trees every day. What's one tree?

"God _fucking _damn it!" I roared.

'I'm over it', I thought to myself, 'it's just a tree'.

"But it was _my _tree."

I stayed there for a while, listening to the birds, listening to the breeze howling through leafless branches, listening to the sound of my own heavy breathing, and sobbing. I stayed there for a long time, till my chest ached and my throat was sore. The sky was purple when I arrived; as I left it was pitch black. Thanks to the moonlight I could just about make out the path back through the trees, though I stumbled over rocks and a couple of sleeping animals along the way. When I finally reached the hut I saw the chairs had been taken back inside. 'I'll have to thank Ai for that tomorrow', I thought.

Then I laid my fingers on the metal handle to my front door.

It was ice cold, much colder than the air outside, much colder than anything should be in late summer. As I pulled the door open a frosty gust spilled out to greet me, its chill cutting right through my boots to my ankles. Inside the hut the fire was dead, and the room which should've been in total darkness was filled with a bright, ghostly light, pale as the moon. Ai was glowing. Every inch of her was glowing. Her body was a shining, pulsating outline beneath the bed covers.

"Ai?" I whispered, but she was fast asleep.

'She glows just liked the tree use to', I thought. Questions I asked myself the night before came back again to knock around in my skull: did she only glow in her sleep? Why did she glow like the tree? Why did she appear _in_ the tree? I couldn't get it out of my head, the idea that maybe the tree wasn't dead, maybe it'd just changed. It wasn't there chopped in two, it was here, alive, breathing, beautiful.

I couldn't help myself; I took a step towards her. Then another, and another. I was standing over her, gazing at her perfect face, watching the light wash over her skin in waves. _Now _I was being creepy. I mean, I was being creepy before, but now I was _really _creeping like a proper pervert.

'I should let her sleep, but I have to know... I need to hear her say it'.

I stretched my fingers out and slowly, slowly moved my hand over the top of her head, letting her hair barely kiss the tips of my fingers. My heart was jumping out of my chest. I filled my hand with her soft hair, and god was it soft.

"Ai, you awake?" I asked, but I knew the answer. If I wanted her awake I had to wake her up myself. I placed my other hand on her bare shoulder. I noticed that I was holding my breath. Her glow got stronger, brighter, the gaps between pulses got shorter. Did she know? Could she tell I was touching her?

I gave her a little shake, but that wasn't enough. I shook her harder and she groaned, still asleep. I took a deep breath.

'Keep it together Saki. Don't go imagining weird shit _now_'.

But I was already there, imagining everything that could happen, imagining things that would never happen. I saw her naked body before me in my mind's eye, felt my palm sliding over the pink scars lining her legs.

"I need to stop..."

Then suddenly her eyelids began to flutter. I froze. She turned her head towards me.

"Saki...?"

Thankfully her eyes were still closed.

"I was just checking to make you were sleeping well. Don't mind me," I replied, my fingers still wrapped in her hair. I tried to back away before she realised what was going on, but before I had a chance she rolled onto her side, trapping my hand under head, and looked right up at me.

"Is it morning already?" she asked, clearly noticing the blue glow in the room.

"Uh, well, no... it's-"

Then I noticed that the glow from her body was trickling down from her pillow. In fact it was drifting away from every part of her, floating on an intangible breeze like snow drifting through the sky. I realised the front door was still open. Glancing over my shoulder I saw it: the moon, peering at us through the trees. My heart fell into my stomach as I watched her glow sail out the door towards that pale bastard in the sky. It was sucking up whatever the fuck she was emanating, and fast.

I looked back at her. She must've seen the horror on my face because she was wide awake now. She looked down at her arm and finally understood what was going on.

"Don't let him take me away!" she screamed.

"What!?"

Her energy was flowing faster and faster out the door. I kicked it closed and pressed my whole body against it. The energy changed course and darted for the windows but it smacked against the drawn curtains and dissipated into the air. Everything was quiet apart from the sound of my heavy breathing. Even the birds were quiet for once. It seemed like Ai was safe... for now.

"Ai, do you know what this glowing shit is?"

"No... I have no idea."

"Seriously? But you were just-"

"It's my father. I don't know how, but it has to be him."

"I didn't see anyone out there though."

"I saw him in my dreams. He was calling down from the moon."

"So you _are_ from the moon!"

"I guess I must be... but what makes _you_ so sure?"

"It's not rocket science. Just this morning you were talking about seeing rabbits dance around and make mochi. I would've been more surprised if you were just a normal Earthling. Anyway, why does your old man want you back so bad?"

"I was meant to get married to a prince my family had set me up with."

"Oh boy, I can already tell where this is going."

"I had to marry _him _specifically. It'd all been arranged, so we could continue the royal line. My father needed a grandson for an heir because all his own children are daughters."

"Well why couldn't one of the other girls get married?"

"I can't remember."

"You can't remember your own sisters?"

"No, I don't know! It's all jumbled up. Just, let me finish."

"Sorry."

"There was nothing wrong with the prince. I feel like we used to be friends, even. But... well the truth is, I'm not attracted to men. Physically or romantically. I know that's strange, but-"

"Hah! Girl, trust me, I understand."

"What do you mean?"

"Look, I'm as gay as they come. Been into girls since as long as I can remember. It's always got me into deep shit, every time. For example, you know that village nearby, the one with all the nice food? Well pretty much everyone there hates me cos I'm gay. I hooked up with some guy's daughter and now I'm public enemy number one. Even the people I worked with, people I thought of as friends, turned on me. I realise now that they never gave a fuck. Back then I used to be a carpenter, see. It taught me stuff, taught me how to make tools and use them to do shit. It taught me everything I needed to get by on my own. They never officially kicked me out of town, but every day they made sure to let me know that I wasn't welcome. One morning some asshole threw a brick through my window, and I thought 'fuck it, I've had enough of this shit', so I decided to go live in the woods. I'd been thinking about it for a while, but it seemed crazy. I mean it _is _crazy, but it's better than living with those pricks."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I had no idea-"

"Don't worry about it. You get used to being hated when you're like me. I mean hell, you're the same, right?"

"I suppose."

"Escaping an arranged marriage is a way more metal than fucking some girl and then hiding in a forest."

"Not really. I didn't have the courage to face my father. I don't even remember how I got here. All I know is that we had a chariot, one that could fly up into the sky, and I rode off in it."

"So you stole it?"

"Technically I owned it, but it was more my mother's chariot than mine."

"Was your mom as stubborn as your dad?"

"No."

"But she didn't stop him forcing this on you...?"

"No."

"Sounds pretty weak to me."

She didn't like it when I said that. Clearly she got along with her mom better than she did her dad, but what kinda parent lets their daughter get sent off to marry some random dude?

Then I saw the tears in her eyes.

"Ai, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's not that. It's... the memories... they felt so numb locked away in my head, but when I started talking about them, it all became real again. Saki... what do I do? Am I stuck here forever? I don't wanna go home, but I don't know anything about Earth. And look at me... I'm covered in scars. I'm hideous."

She was sitting up now, shaking, wrapped in blankets. Her eyes were puffy and red. She looked helpless. She looked as helpless as I felt. In that moment everything I'd been holding back, all the pain I'd pushed to one side came gushing out. Half-sobbing, I said,

"You aren't hideous. Don't you ever say that again."

"Saki..."

"Ai, you're a fucking badass, all right? I'm not gonna let that prick get to you."

"I'm a coward. I ran away."

"From a forced marriage, in a chariot you stole."

"I don't even know where the chariot went."

"Hopefully straight up your dad's backside."

Though we were both crying our eyes out, when she heard those words, a hint of a smile crossed her lips. Then she started to laugh... laugh _and_ sob, all at once. That got me going, and within seconds we were laugh-crying together in the darkness like a pair of idiots.

"Thank you for taking care of me," she said, still giggling a little, "I'm sorry about your tree."

I sat down beside her on the bed with a huge sigh, "Honestly, it's all right. I get it now. For what it's worth, I don't think the tree would blame you. You had to escape somehow, right? I woulda done the same if I were you. Hell, I had no idea people even lived on the moon... did you know people lived on Earth?"

"Yeah, I knew there were people on Earth. I didn't know there were gay lumberjacks on Earth though," she said with a smirk.

"Hah! Yeah well I don't figure there are many as gay as me, let me tell ya."

She slid a hand out from under the covers and placed it on top of mine.

"I'm glad you're the first Earthling I met."

My heart kicked off again. God, I'd never felt so many different emotions in one night.

"I'm uh, glad you're the first moon person I met, as well."

"You should get some rest," she said, "I've kept you up long enough."

I nodded and got off the bed, blood rushing to my cheeks, "Yeah, I'm pooped."

"Are you gonna sleep on the floor again?"

I scratched the back of my head, "There's only one bed in this hut, so, you know. It's all right though, I'm used to sleeping rough."

I heard the sheets ruffle behind me.

"You should sleep in the bed," came Ai's voice.

"No," I replied, watching the blue glow from her body slowly drift across the wall, "you're not used living like this. I am. You can keep the bed."

"That's not what I meant."

I thought about the implications of her words. Suddenly I felt dizzy.

"What _did _you mean?"

"There's more than enough room for two people."

"I just told you I'm a lesbian, right?"

"And I'm not?"

"I mean, I guess, but what I mean is-"

"Saki, you've been staring at me the whole time since we met; I know exactly what you mean. Now are you gonna join me in here, are you gonna keep being stubborn about it?"

My mind was racing. I didn't realise she'd noticed me checking her out. She wanted me in the bed. I mean that's an invitation right? What was I waiting for?

I dragged my mud-encrusted clothes off and dumped them on the floor. I was butt-naked. She was butt-naked. I was still facing the wall. At some point I had to turn around. I'd never been so nervous around a girl before, but then again I'd never been propositioned by a moon princess before either, so I feel like my nerves were justified.

I turned around. I thought maybe she'd thrown the covers off, but no, they were still pulled up right to her chin. When she saw my naked body her cheeks went bright red.

"Changed your mind already?" I joked, ignoring my own sweaty palms.

She glared at me, then threw the covers back so that only her legs were covered. It was now or never. The bed creaked as I climbed into it beside her. We were face-to-face. I could feel her breath on my lips. Then I felt her fingers stroking my thighs, my waist, my chest. She leaned closer. This was really happening. Somehow every impossible dream my mind had ever cooked up was here for real, in my bed. Then her lips were on my lips, our bodies interlinked in the darkness. I closed my eyes and gave in.

That was the best sleepless night I'd ever had. I even forgot about the moon and its bullshit. Unfortunately, the moon hadn't forgotten about me...


	2. No Choice

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Zombie Land Saga or any of its characters. This work is a fan-work offered free of charge, and I make no money from it whatsoever.**

_A/N: __Originally this was only half of a much longer chapter, but I found a perfect point to 'split' that chapter so I can upload this a bit sooner for everyone ;) don't worry, I didn't compromise on the quality to do that - it just worked out kinda miraculously! Expect the next chapter in around 2 weeks, which seems to be how long it takes me to do chapters for ongoing stories.  
_

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**Chapter 2: No Choice**

* * *

There was something wrong with Ai. It'd barely been two weeks since she crash-landed into my favourite tree in her birthday suit, but in that time she'd grown thinner and paler every day. At first I didn't notice. When I saw the bags under her eyes, I just assumed she needed more sleep. When she said she felt tired after we'd been out in the forest all day, I took that to mean we'd just walked too far. I mean, it's a big forest, and even _I _got worn out from time to time. I had no reason to think something was up. After all, we hadn't given the moon any chances to steal away her glow like it did the first time. I kept the curtains closed, and we stayed indoors at night. I thought I had it covered, I figured we were safe, that it was over... but I was wrong.

We were out hunting together when it happened. Ai had good aim and a real killer instinct, despite how innocent she looked, so she had no trouble taking down pests like sabretooth rabbits. She even took out bigger targets like boars and swamp vultures in one shot. I didn't give a fuck about hunting, if I'm honest, but she loved it, and I liked watching her go for it. Seeing her sly grin as she took out some poor animal in one shot... it was a thing of beauty.

It was raining that day. Just spitting, for the most part, but by the time we were heading back to my hut the rain had really started to pour down. Being in the deepest, swampiest part of the woods, you didn't really feel the rain on your skin, but you could hear it. The deep roar of raindrops pummeling the leaves far above drifted down right to the forest floor, so loud that you had to shout if you wanted to be heard over it. Sometimes there'd be a clearing, and then you'd see the rain in thick sheets, a translucent blur pouring down from the heavens.

"Let's wait the storm out," I suggested, climbing onto an enormous root snaking out of the waterlogged mud, "we should be able to stay dry up here."

Ai wrapped her hands around the gnarled bark of the tree root and began to drag herself up it. She tried to dig her boots into the tree but they were so covered in mud she couldn't get a foothold. I leaned over and reached out to help pull her up. She grabbed my hand,

"Thanks, Saki."

That's when I noticed she was shaking.

"You okay?" I asked, as she gingerly got to her feet.

"Yeah, I'm just tired."

She looked exhausted. She'd been looking exhausted for several days now. Today was the first day she hadn't killed a single thing during a hunt.

"You _sure_ you're all right?"

"I'm sure."

The rain continued to pour. We sat down, resting our backs against the tree's bulky trunk. Ai pressed her head into my shoulder, her eyes shut tight. She hated storms. She hated thunder and lightning the most, but even a little rain seemed to bring her mind back to that night she landed burnt and bleeding in the silver tree. 'Maybe that's why she was shaking', I thought, though I only half-believed it.

"Don't worry about not catching anything today, Ai. We've got enough food to last us a _week _thanks to you taking out that boar the other day."

I watched the swamp waters drift lazily across the forest floor beneath us. The swamp was filling up so fast there were even fish swimming through the mud now.

"You probably just overworked yourself," I continued, "I have that sometimes. Some days you just don't wanna get out of bed, y'know? I mean I had that more when I was alone, but I'm not from the moon, so you know, I can see how things would be different for you."

I closed my eyes as a yawn washed over me, "Man, even _I'm _pooped now. Maybe we should get an early night tonight, and _actually _sleep when we get in bed for once."

The roar of rainfall intensified above us. Soon after, a wave of thunder swept through the forest, deep and low, and loud enough that I could feel it in my chest.

"I didn't even see the lightning," I said, trying to ease Ai's mind, "so it must be far away. We'll probably just get the rain."

I turned my head to see how she was doing. Her eyes were closed, her mouth hanging ever so slightly open.

"Asleep, huh?"

But she didn't look asleep. Her face looked completely limp, and white as snow. I gave her a little shake.

"Ai? Aiiii! Wake up sleepy head."

She didn't stir. As I shook her she started to slip off my shoulder into the swirling river below.

"Woah!" I yelled as I grabbed her by the arm, "Ai, wake the fuck up!"

She couldn't hear me; she was out cold. My head fell through my body. I pulled her close, tried to open her eyes, but nothing could wake her up. I could feel the world spinning around me.

"Ai!?"

I put my hand to her neck to check for a pulse, but I didn't know where to look. Holding her in my arms, I brought my cheek close to her lips to see if I could feel her breath on my skin... and I could.

"Oh my god. Thank _fuck_," I cried, sighing in relief, "you had me worried for a second there."

I still needed to check her pulse. I tried her wrists. It took me forever but eventually I found the right spot. Her pulse was fine, as far as I could tell anyway. All that mattered was that she was alive. She was unconscious, but she was alive.

My palms were drenched in sweat.

"Fuck..."

I had to get her back to the hut. Whatever help she needed, I wasn't gonna be able to give it to her in the middle of a goddamn swamp. There was no time to waste; I crouched down and lifted her so that she was resting on my back with her arms flopped over my shoulders. It wasn't exactly the most secure position but it'd have to do.

"Right, here we go!"

I jumped off of the gigantic root and into the murky stream. Clouds of muck billowed around me as I splash landed in the water. Going fast wasn't an option, cos every step I took ended with my feet swallowed up by sticky mud. I was up to my knees in it.

"I'm sorry, Ai. I should've known better than to bring you to this shithole on a rainy day."

The vultures screamed at me from the tree branches, following me as I trudged through the gloop.

"You can fuck off too, you ugly bastards. She ain't dead yet."

In the end it took over an hour to get home in that shitty weather. My arms were numb long before we actually reached my hut. When we finally got inside I dropped Ai onto the bed and let myself drop face-down to the floor.

"Never again... I'm never going into that goddamn swamp again..."

The rain kept on coming, battering every inch of the glorified shed I called home. 'I wonder how much mud I've smeared onto the floor' I thought to myself, knowing that I should get up and check on Ai, but also knowing that I had no strength left in my body.

"Saki...?"

"Ai? You're awake?"

I pushed myself up onto my knees. Even that was a struggle, "You had me worried for a second there."

"Where are we?"

I crawled over to the bed, "We're back home. You blacked out in the swamp."

"I don't remember that."

"I mean yeah, that's kinda how blacking out works."

She stared at me silently, sometimes looking directly at me, other times just beyond me. She looked like she was still half asleep. Her face was almost grey, like ash chipped off a stone block, and there were deep craters under her eyes.

"We need to get you to a doctor," I said, "I know one in town that's not a total shitbag."

"I'm fine."

"You keep saying that, but you know it's not true."

"You can't go back into town."

"It's not a big deal."

"You said they threw a brick through your window!"

"Don't worry about it."

"I'll stop worrying about _you_ when you stop worrying about _me_."

She had a point. "All right," I said, smirking, "so maybe it's kind of a big deal, but it's nothing I can't handle."

"We don't need to go. It's not like I've blacked out before."

I took her hand in mine, "Ai, we're going."

"No," she said, pulling her hand away, "we're not. What's the doctor even gonna do?"

"I dunno. But it's better than nothing!"

She turned her gaze to the shadowy ceiling, "There's nothing anyone can do, Saki."

Her voice was low, serious. I kept my mouth shut. I didn't wanna ask her _why _there's nothing anyone can do. I didn't wanna know.

"It's the moon," she continued, "I remembered it a while ago now, but I tried to forget..."

"But we've got the moon figured out! As long as we can't see _it_, it can't see _us_. No problem!"

"It doesn't work that way. You see... people like me, people from the moon... if we're away from the moon for too long, we start to, well..."

"Don't say it."

"I'm sorry, Saki."

"You were fine a few days ago!"

"You're right. I felt great. I was starting to think that maybe I _could _survive down here on Earth forever."

"You can."

"I can't."

"Stop saying that! I refuse to believe it."

"Nothing can change it Saki."

"Bullshit!" I got to my feet, "_We're_ gonna change it!"

"But Saki-"

"No!" I yelled, "I'm gonna get you to the doctor even if I have to carry you the whole way, and if that doesn't work, I dunno, I'll punch the moon in the fucking face."

"You can't solve everything with your fists, stupid."

"Ain't gonna stop me trying."

"Saki, seriously."

"We'll head out first thing tomorrow. For now, let's have just eat and forget about it."

She didn't seem impressed, but she wasn't complaining. I didn't actually mind her complaints. Her complaints didn't scare me. What scared me was that part of me knew she was _right_, that there was fuck all I could do.

How was I supposed to deal with that? Accept it? No, never.

'No way am I letting the moon take her from me,' I thought, 'I'm gonna find a cure for whatever she's got going on, or I'm gonna die trying, just you fucking see.'


	3. Country Roads

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Zombie Land Saga or any of its characters. This work is a fan-work offered free of charge, and I make no money from it whatsoever.**

_A/N: Boy oh boy this took a while! I re-wrote it so many times after I got writer's block at about halfway in, then I felt bad for delaying it so I delayed it more. But now it's done! And I'm pleased with how it turned out. There's one more chapter after this, and luckily it's already part written, so it should genuinely take a normal amount of time rather than a quarter of a year!_

_Thank you so much for your patience :) I hope you enjoy this chapter! _

* * *

**Chapter 3: Country Roads**

* * *

No one in their right mind would choose to trudge through waterlogged mud lakes to go visit a town where they were hated by everyone and their uncle. You'd have to be an idiot, a true moron to do something like that. To do something so insane and unnecessary took a certain level of dumbassery. That, or you had to have a damn good reason.

Thankfully I had both.

"We're probably about halfway there now," I said to Ai, who was dragging her heels through the dirt alongside me.

"Now I see why you don't visit this place often."

"It's nothing to do with the walk, but don't worry, you'll see why I avoid it once we get there."

My old home town sat at the base of a mountain beyond the forest. They got even more rain than I did. One time, back when I lived there, it rained all day every day for a whole week. It was kind of a pain in the ass but you got used to it. The people that lived in the next village over had it lucky, they had clear skies and sunshine all year round. Mountains, man, how the fuck do they even work?

After some more walking we finally reached the edge of the forest. Beyond the last few trees stretched an ocean of grassy fields, and beyond _that_ loomed the mountain. The fields looked pretty, but I knew from experience that the wind was a real bitch. We sat down and rested our legs under a spindly little tree with spotty white bark and big, plate-sized leaves.

"At least this part shouldn't be so muddy," I sighed, "though I'd take the mud over the wind any day."

"Saki... I'm not sure I can walk any more."

Ai looked like a corpse. I don't know why I expected her to be able to walk such a long distance. It was amazing she'd made it as far as she did. I forced myself to smile,

"I'll carry you the rest of the way. Don't worry about it."

"I can't make you do that."

"You aren't _making _me do anything. Do I ever do anything I don't _want _to do?"

"Well..."

"Exactly."

I pulled her close and wrapped my arms around her. The bones in her shoulders pressed into my skin.

"I'm sorry Saki."

"You have nothin' to be sorry about," I said, "We're in this together, right? Besides, I'm the one that dragged you out here, so if anything _I _should be the one saying sorry right now."

In the distance the sun was already beginning its descent towards the horizon. If we didn't start moving soon we'd still be out by nightfall, and that meant being completely exposed to the moon…

"All right Ai," I said, cracking my neck, "hop on my back, it's time to go."

"Already? It feels like we only just got here."

"We did."

"Then why the hurry?"

"Just hop on and hold tight."

"Let me try and walk it first."

"Fat chance."

"I came this far on my own two feet, didn't I? I just need a rest. With a bit more time I could-"

"Nope!"

"Saki, come on, you can't carry me all the way there! I'm gonna have to walk."

"Yes I can, and no you aren't."

"Stop being stubborn."

"You first."

Using the tree for balance, she pulled herself to her feet, "See? I can walk. So let's go already."

"You ain't walkin' anywhere with your legs trembling like _that_, Ai."

"I'm going now," she said as she hobbled past me, "if you don't want to join me, that's your choice."

"Well if you're gonna be like that..."

I leapt to my feet and, trying not to enjoy myself too much, slipped my hands around Ai and snatched her up into my arms. I held her in front of me like a prince carrying his bride.

"...I guess this is how we're doing it!"

"Saki, put me down!"

"Never!"

I marched out from the cover of the trees into the open fields. Immediately the wind rose up and smacked me across the face.

"Make sure you hold on tight, Ai."

"Just put me down!"

"Not happening."

The grass was as tall as my legs were long. I couldn't _see _how tall it was, thanks to Ai blocking my view, but I knew it was right up there cos I could feel the blades trying to crawl under my shirt and slice up my belly button as I waded through them.

Eventually Ai stopped protesting, only piping up occasionally to ask if I'd let her walk now, to which my answer was always 'No'. My stupid arms started aching long before we reached the mountain. The craggy bastard seemed to get further and further away with every step I took. I wasn't sure how much more I could take; my arms were already shaking, and all my fingers were numb. Ai must've felt it too cos she started to get real insistent.

"Saki I really think you should let me walk now."

"No."

"This is ridiculous. You're gonna hurt yourself."

"I'm a lumberjack, this is nothin'!"

"Please!"

Ice-cold gusts barged into me one after the other, shoving me back and tossing my hair all over the place. 'No wonder there are no fucking trees round here, this shitty wind must knock 'em all down before they even get a chance to grow big', I thought to myself as the bitter air refrigerated my already frosty tits.

I marched on. My cheeks were numb, my hands were numb, and my arms were numb now too. I was numb and cold and aching all over. The mountain loomed over us, a black mass piercing the sky, blotting out the setting sun and leaving us in icy darkness.

I could feel sweat running down my face.

"We're almost there," I panted, but as soon as the words left my lips my arms gave out. I lunged forward to catch Ai but I was too slow. With her arms wrapped around my neck, she plunged into the grass, taking me down with her.

I expected to smack face-first into hard dirt. Instead, I landed on something soft. I opened my eyes; my face was buried in Ai's chest. Not such a bad landing after all.

"You'd make a good pillow, Ai."

She groaned, "I _told _you to let me walk."

I can't say I wasn't warned. My arms were so fucked that I couldn't even roll myself off of her. She got to her feet and pulled me up. I didn't have a hope in hell of carrying her the rest of the way, but at least she could sling an arm around my shoulder if she needed to.

In the end we made it just as the first stars began to dot the sky. The town had changed since my last visit. All the noise and stink was encircled by a high wall made of wood, sharpened at the top. You used to be able to just walk straight in, simple as. Now there were two guards standing around outside a massive fuck-off gate. The guards were huge, with chiselled muscles and battle-worn armour. They were ugly as fuck, too. One of them looked like what you'd get if you cross-bred a warthog with an elephant. The torchlight somehow made them look even uglier - but then again I can't imagine broad daylight would've done them any favours either, so who knows.

"What's your business here?" the warthog-elephant grunt grumbled at me.

"I'm here to see the doctor."

The pair of them glared at me, then they looked Ai up and down.

I glared back at them, "Are you gonna let us through, or what?"

"All right, we'll let you through," replied the other guard, who looked like a half-dead horse, "but first you have to do us a favour..."

He looked over at his buddy. They both had nasty grins spread across their faces.

"Yeah," continued Warthog, "you have to show us the rest of your little girlfriend's scars."

I clenched my fist, "What!? Are you kiddin' me!?"

"Did I stutter?"

"Listen to me, shitwad, I am _not_ in the mood to fuck around with idiots like you tonight. Open the gates and let us in before I lose my patience."

"We've made our conditions clear. If you're going to ignore them…"

"Yeah there's no way anyone's stripping for _you _buddy. Have you even seen a naked woman before? Somehow I doubt it."

"You're an aggressive little monkey, aren't you!" he laughed, "Well if you won't show us, then we can't let you in! For all we know you could be a pair of necromancers. Why from this distance, those scars look just like magical markings," he turned to Horse-face again, "Wouldn't you agree?"

"Oh yes, there's something magical going on here, no doubt about it. We'll have to see them up _close_ to be sure, of course."

"They're obviously scars, jackass."

"Then you can show us!" Warthog grunted.

"That's not how this works."

"It's exactly how this works. Now you can do as we say, or you can crawl back into whatever hole you came from."

"Do you know who I am? You must do since you're being such a prick."

"You can't be anyone important," said Horse-face, "we've never seen you round here before."

I didn't believe him at first, but when I thought about it I realised I hadn't seen either of _them_ before either. In fact the town had never had a _need_ for guards before. I half-wondered if they brought them in just to keep me out.

Warthog scratched his chin, "All right, all right, as I'm feeling generous this evening, how about this: if she can't _show _us her scars, perhaps she can tell us how she got them instead. Was she tortured by some brute? Attacked by a mob? More importantly, are there any scars she has that we _can't _see? Don't skimp on the details – we need to be sure that you're _really _telling the _truth_ after all."

"Ai," I whispered, "we haven't gotta tell 'em shit. Don't let 'em get to you."

But they already had. I could feel her her quivering beside me.

"Saki, let's just go."

"No way. These guys ain't got nothin' on us."

"I can't take them on like this. I didn't catch anything when we went hunting. I can't aim, I-"

"Relax. Leave it to me."

"Saki, no-"

I strode towards them, "I'm only gonna say this once, you pair of walking turd piles. Let us in there now, and I mean _right now_, or I'm gonna beat the shit outta both of you."

Warthog smirked, "That sounds like a threat to me. Does it sound like a threat to you?"

Horse-face picked up an axe leaning against the wall, "That's a clear threat. We have no choice but to defend ourselves from the intruders."

"It's our duty after all."

"For the sake of the village."

They squared up in front of me. Horse-face had an axe, Warthog had a spiked mace. They were both easily twice as tall and twice as broad as I was. I had jack shit to defend myself with, so I rolled my sleeves up and cracked my knuckles,

"Don't say I didn't warn you punks."

I can't lie, I was shitting myself. I mean not literally, like what the fuck I don't even know why I have to explain that, but metaphorically. I was pissing my pants. I was having all kinds of toilet experiences, _metaphorically_, while I stood there and pretended like I was about to knock out those two behemoths. I knew I'd fucked myself. I mean when you step into these things, you know you have to do it, but you know it's stupid. Sometimes you have to be stupid. You just hope it works out, you know? These things have a way of working out. At that moment, as I looked up at their butt-ugly, sweaty, hairy, just goddamn fucking disgusting faces, I honestly thought, 'Fuck, I'm actually gonna die here, aren't I?' which would be fine if it was just me, but it wasn't just _me_. I had Ai to think about. When in my life had I needed to give a shit about anyone else? Exactly, never. But now I'd not only screwed myself over, I'd screwed things up for Ai as well. I completely fucked it. I fucked it and I knew I fucked it, but I had to pretend I hadn't. I had to just hope that somehow I was wrong, that somehow my gamble had paid off.

I pulled my leg back, swung it forward as hard and fast as my body would let me, and drove it right up into Horce-face's crotch. Somehow, despite all the rest of his body being totally covered in plate armour, that one part didn't have so much as a piece of fabric protecting it. He crumpled to the floor in a mewling, groaning mess, dropping his axe. I picked it up. My arms were still dead from carrying Ai but somehow I managed to lift the weapon. It was easily three times as big as my own axe back home.

Now Warthog was_ pissed_. He charged at me, tusks first, mace at the ready. I jumped out of the way as he roared past, then I swung the axe around. It was so heavy it span my entire body along with it. I didn't hit anything, but I made myself dizzy.

"Saki, look out!" Ai screamed.

It was Horce-face, he was back up, and now he was pissed too.

"I'm gonna kill you, you little bitch."

"Like fuck you are, dipshit."

"What did you call me!?"

He smacked a hairy knuckle right across my cheek. I staggered back. I could feel myself losing balance. I was sure I was gonna fall, then I felt a pair of hands on my back.

"I've got you, Saki."

"Thanks, Ai."

"Just distract them."

"Huh?"

"I said just distract-"

But she didn't have time to finish her sentence. Warthog's mace was whooshing through the air and our heads were in the firing line. We both ducked just in time.

"Get her, Umanose!" Warthog screamed.

I smirked at Horce-face, "Umanose? Your name is _Umanose_? That literally means 'horseback', doesn't it? Hahaha!"

Umanose cut my laughter short with a sharp kick to my shins. It took everything I had not to double over in pain. I pulled myself together and took another swing at him with the axe but he was ready for me. He hopped out of the way and knocked it out of my hands with a quick strike. I managed to get a good hit on his jaw with my fists but he didn't even flinch. Then he rammed his knee into my gut and knocked all the air out of me.

"Fuck," I wheezed.

Suddenly I was being dragged away by my head. As I looked up I saw Warthog had me by my hair.

"Now I've got you."

"So what's _your_ name, big boy?" I mocked, still metaphorically pissing myself, "_Tonkatsu_ (pork cutlet)?"

He growled, his filthy breath spewing into my nostrils. It was enough to make you wanna throw up. Thankfully I managed to hold my stomach. Horce-face picked the axe up off the ground. 'This is it', I thought, 'this is how I die. To a pair of fucking farm animals'. I watched Umanose raise the axe above his head. He paused for just a moment, then-

Out of nowhere a rock screamed into Warthog's face, smacking him right in the eye. He reeled back, roaring in pain. I fell to the floor. Horse-face was too busy trying to find where the rock had come from to bother with me. He soon realised what'd happened though. So did I.

"You think one little pebble is gonna do anything, girlie?" he huffed, pointing at Ai.

She picked up another rock, "No. But I think two will do the trick."

Then she threw it. This stone was much bigger than the last one. It was easily as big as a human fist. I watched as it soared over my head and crunched into Horse-face's big nose.

"Saki, now!"

Hearing Ai's call, I rolled away from Umanose just as he collapsed to the floor. As I pushed myself to my knees there she was, her hand outstretched to help me up.

"You're a lifesaver," I said, "let's open that gate before these bozos have a chance to stop us."

We ran for the gate. I had no idea what we were gonna do once we were actually in town; it was only a matter of time before the guards let everyone know that we'd fucked them up. When that happened, well, we'd be lucky to get out alive. But we had to try. Ai was already dying, and it didn't matter what happened to me. This was all or nothing.

Then there we were. The gate, standing high and mighty before us. I just had to push it open. But as I leaned my hands on its wooden surface, out of nowhere came Warthog, charging into us at full speed.

"This time you'll _stay_ down!" he grunted as he pushed Ai aside and threw his whole body into me, squishing me into dirt beneath him.

I could feel every bone in my body being compressed under his enormous blubbery gut. His breath stank like rotten meat. On instinct I headbutted him as hard as I could. That startled him (and sent a splitting pain through my skull), but no matter how much I wriggled about I couldn't free my arms from underneath him, and if I couldn't free my arms there was no way I was gonna get his fat body off me. I thought I'd given myself an opening, but all I did was piss him off even more. He stared at me with his bloodshot, yellow eyes. Now it was my turn to take a headbutt, except if _he _headbutted _me _my skull was as good as mush. I couldn't breathe. I didn't even have enough air in my lungs to call out Ai's name.

I was about ready to give up, when off to the side I heard a loud thump followed by the long groan of creaking wood. The gate was being opened. Was it Ai? Warthog tried to look behind him but his thick neck wouldn't turn enough.

"What on _Earth _is going on here?"

That voice, I recognised it, but where-

"Ah, m'lady!" Warthog spluttered, quickly clambering to his feet and giving a salute to the voice. I looked past him and suddenly I realised who it was.

"Reiko!?" I blurted out.

She shoo'd Warthog out of the way. When she caught sight of me sprawled out on the floor she gasped and took a step back in shock.

"...Saki!?"

It was the mayor's daughter. The girl who got me kicked out of town in the first place. Not that it was her fault.

I smirked, "How do I look? Sexy as ever?"

"What are you doing here?"

The guard did an about face, "This ruffian was trying to break through the gate, m'lady. She attacked us, unprovoked, and her accomplice nearly killed us with her missile weapons."

I sat up, "He means she knocked out Horse-face with a rock."

For a moment I thought I saw a hint of a grin cross Reiko's face but she quickly wiped it off as Warthog leaned closer to her and whispered, loudly enough for me to hear, "Don't let them trick you m'lady. The other one looks to be some kind of dark magic user. She has strange marks on her body."

"He means burn scars."

He huffed and stomped his feet in the dirt, "You're not fooling anyone, miscreant. Do you know who you are in the presence of?"

"Kirishima Reiko, the daughter of Kirishima Hirooki, the town mayor."

Warthog's jaw hit the ground.

"If you want," I continued, "I can tell you her bust size too? Not that it'd mean much to you. Have you even seen real human tits before, _Tonkatsu_? Yeah, I didn't think so."

That made him literally shake with rage. Reiko seemed kinda annoyed too, but she'd forgive me, or at least I hoped she would.

"Ahem, well then," she said, trying to hide her blushing cheeks, "I think it's best I take care of these two myself."

"But m'lady-"

"Someone needs to look after Umanose, and seeing as you're his friend..."

"But, but-"

"No buts! Now, Saki," she continued, crouching down and helping me to my feet, "let's go explain everything to your friend, shall we?"

She winked at me as I took her hand. I tried not to let Warthog see my smile. I shoulda known Reiko would be still be a troublemaker. Ai was sitting in the mud not far from the now-open gate. As I approached her with Reiko she looked totally confused.

"Saki?"

"Ai, don't worry," I whispered, "This girl here? We used to fuck back in the day."

Reiko punched my arm.

"Ow! What the hell! It's the truth ain't it?!"

"You could be a bit more subtle about it!"

"What's the point of that?"

Then Ai interrupted, "I'm sorry but, who are you?"

"Ai," I said, "I just told you, she's-"

"I'm Kirishima Reiko. I manage the daily affairs of the town with my father, the mayor, Kirishima Hirooki. And yes, I used be Saki's girlfriend before she got on the wrong side of my father," she looked over her shoulder to check that Warthog and his buddy weren't listening in, "I'm sorry the guards caused you so much trouble."

"They attacked us completely unprovoked. They would've _killed_ us had you not intervened."

"It wasn't my choice to hire them."

"Then why are they here?"

"Well... there'd been rumours about certain people wandering into town at night."

I slapped Reiko on the back, "You mean _me_, right?"

"…yes."

"Hah! I knew it. The bigotry in this shithole is unbelievable. The amount your dad must've shelled out just to keep me away... god _damn_ is he crazy!"

Ai wasn't laughing, "Does that mean we won't be able to see the doctor?"

Reiko just stared into the dirt beneath Ai's feet. That wiped the smile off my face.

"Reiko," I said, "we _need _to see that doctor. Ai's life depends on it."

"What's wrong with her?"

"We don't know, but it's not good. She can barely walk as it is. There's no way she can make a second trip in her condition."

Reiko sighed, "There might be a way. But you'll have to wait here."

"What, with the guards!?"

"No, I'll take them with me. Just... just wait here."

Reiko went back to Warthog. He protested as she explained the situation, but obeying her command was his job whether he liked it or not, so he picked up Horce-face and went back through the gate, closing it behind him with a deep _clunk_. I had a little stretch then sat down next to Ai. Beyond the wall I could hear the townspeople chatting merrily as they went about their business. I could even picture it in my mind - assuming the street looked the same. A lot of shit had changed in just a few weeks. A few weeks ago I was still alone, chopping down trees for the hell of it. A month ago I was still sneaking into town to spy on Reiko and buy actually decent food that _didn't _taste like rubber after you cooked it.

I felt Ai's fingers slide over mine. I let my fingers interlock with hers and held her hand tight.

"You okay?" I asked.

It was so dark now that only the warm torchlight illuminated her pale face, "Saki… I love you."

Suddenly a weird feeling washed over me, like a warm waterfall cascading down from my shoulders. I don't think even Reiko had said those words to me before.

"Ai, what, I mean, why-"

"I wish I never had to leave."

"You _don't _have to leave, Ai. We're gonna fix this, you haven't gotta go anywhere, okay?"

Tears glistened on her cheeks as she looked up at the night sky, "I can feel myself drifting away. I don't know how much longer I have left."

"The doctor'll be here any minute."

"I don't think they can help me."

"Yes he can."

"I have to go back to the moon."

"To that prince? Yeah, fuck that."

She started shaking, "I can only think of one way back up there…"

"What… you don't mean…?"

"Yes, the lightning. I have to get struck by it again."

"Can't they just send someone for you?"

"I don't know. I've never met anyone who came down to Earth. We weren't meant to leave the moon, so it didn't matter."

"It isn't _gonna _matter. You're not going back."

"I have to, if I want to live."

"Ai-"

Before I could say any more the gate swung open. From beyond the wall came Reiko with a tall figure dressed in long black robes following close behind. They walked towards us. As they passed by the torches I could see the robed figure was a woman, and that she had bandages wrapped all around her legs and neck.

"Saki," Reiko began, "this is Yamada Tae, a travelling apothecary."

"What happened to the old doctor?" I asked, noticing that the 'apothecary' had drool running down her chin.

"He retired."

"I leave you alone for just one month and suddenly you guys do all this shit?"

"She's more than capable of helping your girlfriend, Saki. We're lucky to have her. She's so good at her job that they call her The Legendary Yamada Tae."

The 'legendary' Yamada Tae let out a low, animalistic groan at the mention of her name. Ai wasn't buying it either.

"Why is she covered in bandages?" she asked.

Tae slid her hands out from under her long sleeves and gripped the collar of her robe. Then, in one smooth motion, she tore her entire robe in half, exposing her scarred, bandaged body to us.

"Woah…"

Reiko seemed as shocked as I was.

"Uh, Doctor? Are you all right?"

Tae started gibbering and flailing her arms at Ai. That's when I noticed that the skin on her arms was grey. Some parts were almost blue. She staggered closer and closer. Ai tried to shuffle away on her butt, but she didn't get far; within moments Tae was all over her, tearing her clothes off in a frenzy of teeth and nails.

"Oi, what the fuck do you think you're doing!?" I roared.

"Stop, _stop_!" Ai cried. I grabbed the crazed doctor by the shoulders and tried to drag her off but she was too strong. She sent me reeling with just a flick of her arm.

"Reiko, stop her!"

She was frozen in shock.

"God _damn _it!"

Without hesitation I leapt onto the 'legendary' apothecary, pinning her to the ground just beside Ai. She had a bit of Ai's shirt still caught between her teeth.

"Ughntthhgfahhh!" she growled.

"If you think you can molest my girlfriend and get away with it then you've got another thing coming, asshole."

I expected her to fight back, but after hearing my words she just flopped back into the dirt. I released my grip on her, just a little at first, but she didn't try to attack. Instead she slowly raised her arm and pointed up to the sky.

"What now?" I asked, not even trying to hide my exasperation. Against my better judgement I turned to see what she was pointing at. When I saw it my blood ran cold.

It was the moon. The moon was staring us in the face, and we had nowhere to hide.

I looked back at Tae.

"You goddamn-" I began, but my words caught in my throat. She was glowing. Yamada Tae was glowing just like Ai did. I looked over at Ai and she was glowing too.

"…what-"

Then out of nowhere Tae pushed me to the floor, grabbed my head with both of her bandaged hands and opened her mouth wide. Her breath stank even worse than Warthog's earlier.

"No no no no no no NO! I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing, but it ain't happening!"

I grabbed her wrists and pulled with all my strength to try and pry her off of me.

"Ghlahrghgha!" she slobbered, leaning closer.

I started punching her in the chest, but hitting her was like hitting a brick wall. Nothing seemed to faze her. I could almost taste her breath at the back of my throat. "Stop!" I heard Reiko cry, as she wrapped her arms around Tae's waist and tried to pull her away.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!?" I yelled, then my lips were sealed as the mad doctor pressed her mouth against mine.

Her tongue tasted just as bad as her breath smelled. It was wet, sticky, and rough like sandpaper. As she ground her tongue against mine she started to puff air into my mouth like she was blowing up a balloon. I couldn't pull my head away. Her long hair poked me in the eyes and crawled up my nose. Everyone was screaming and shouting and at one point I felt like I was gonna throw up but thank _fuck _I didn't cos can you imagine how shit that would've been?

Then she released me. I pushed her away and immediately started spitting out all the saliva I could. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve but the taste wouldn't go away.

"Saki, are you all right?"

I rubbed my eyes, which were sore from the battering they'd taken from the apothecary's hair. It was Ai. Her body was shining bone white in the darkness.

"Forget about me, we need to get you inside."

I leaned on my knees as I felt my gut start to heave. I didn't wanna throw up, but puke is a lot like gas: better out than in. I've eaten some weird shit in my time, drunk some fucking godawful beer, but I can say with complete certainty that Yamada Tae's tongue is by far the most disgusting thing I've ever had in my mouth.

"Well," I sighed as the heaving finally stopped, "obviously this quack is fucking useless. We've gotta go find another doctor or something. But first we need to get inside, like right _now_. If we don't, you'll…"

Ai was staring at me, wide-eyed, mouth agape.

"…Ai? You okay? What's wrong?"

With one hand covering her mouth she pointed at me, "Saki… you're… _glowing_."

"What the fuck do you mean I'm _glowing_?"

I looked down at my hands. Sure enough, they were glowing bright white, even brighter than Ai was.

"No…" I mumbled, "you're kidding."

I unbuttoned my flannel shirt. My chest was glowing. My stomach was glowing. Every part of me was lit up from the inside, as if there was a huge lantern hidden in my gut.

"_You_…" I growled, turning to the mad doctor, who was now sitting on the floor chewing on her own hair. "You did this to me…"

Ignoring my anger, she bit off the hair she was chewing and swallowed it whole. She wasn't glowing anymore. She looked normal, just like Reiko or anyone else. Just like I used to.

I turned to Reiko, panicking now, "Why didn't you keep old doctor!? _He _wouldn't have given me this shit!"

"Saki, calm down."

"Calm down? Calm _down_? Are you serious!? Look at me!"

"There must be something-"

"There's nothing. If you're outdoors at night, you're fucked. That's all there is to it."

"Saki, I-"

"Look, you've gotta let us in. You have to explain it to your dad."

"He'll never listen to me. If he finds out I've brought you in he'll just throw you both in prison."

"I'd take that over dying, any day."

Ai looked up at the moon, "Saki, we have to go, while we still have time."

"Go where? Back through the field!?"

Her light was streaming up into the sky; her skin getting dimmer and dimmer by the second.

"Reiko, _please_," I begged, "even if you can't let me in, Ai hasn't done anything wrong."

Ai grabbed my shoulders, "Saki, what are you saying?"

"Go take shelter without me. I'll sleep out here."

"I'm not going anywhere without you."

"The longer we stand here the less time we have before everything's fucked, so just get-"

Suddenly a saliva-coated, bandage-wrapped hand slapped itself over my mouth. It was Tae. In her other hand was an empty glass flask.

"Gghuuahh!" she said, then she took her hand off my mouth and bent her head over the flask. Before I could ask what the hell she was doing she violently puked up a torrent of bright blue liquid into the container till it was full to the brim, bubbling and steaming and smelling faintly of over-ripe apples.

Ai was speechless. Reiko looked disgusted. Honestly, I was actually a little impressed that her vomit smelled as good as it did.

"Aaagghhh!" she beamed, looking very pleased with herself, then in one smooth motion she grabbed the back of Ai's head and poured the liquid into her open mouth.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I yelled, "you can't just do that shit without asking!"

Ai immediately gagged and tried to spit it out, but Tae wasn't having any of it. I was about to shove Tae out of the way but then I saw the glow start to spread along Ai's cheeks. A bright light, brighter and paler than the full moon. It trickled down her skin, seeped through her hair. It melted across her entire body from tip to toe till she looked like a human spotlight.

Tae took a step back and admired her work.

"Nngrnraah!" she commented.

Ai's energy wasn't floating out of her anymore. All the tiredness was gone from her eyes. She looked just like when we first met. Well, minus the open wounds and third-degree burns. Also this time she had clothes on - or what was left of them after Tae had finished trying to eat them. With a sigh of relief I wrapped my arm around Reiko's shoulder.

"All right, okay, I take it back. This doctor of yours isn't so bad after all."

"I don't understand any part of what's going on right now, but I'm glad you're not dying."

"Yeah, that's a good point, I'm _not_ dying… at least I don't _think _I am…"

I looked at my body. Just like with Ai, my light wasn't leaking out or drifting off into the dark void above. It was all mine. If the moon people wanted some they'd have to come get it in person, rather than vacuuming it up from far away like a bunch of space pussies.

"Hey doc," I asked, "how the hell did you even do this?"

But she was off in her own world, intently sniffing her index finger. I tried asking her the same question a couple more times and Reiko waved a hand in front of her face but nothing could break her focus. We stood around in silence for a while, well aware that we couldn't go into town, but also aware of the fact that the only other option was to trek all the way back into the forest. Yeah, no thanks. I started telling Ai about some of the crazier shit Reiko and I used to get up to, but just as I got to juicy bits the town gate opened again to reveal the dynamic duo, Warthog and Horse-face, along with a special guest.

"Father!" Reiko cried out.

"Oh shit," I mumbled under my breath.

The old man didn't waste any time. He pointed a commanding finger at us and his two guards leapt into action like the faithful pets they were.

"Get them, especially the blonde one!"

Ai locked eyes with me, "Saki!"

"I'm way ahead of you."

We ran back down the hillside as fast as we could, the mayor's two cronies galloping after us full throttle. There was no going back now. As we ploughed through the grass, with tweedle-dumb and tweedle-dumber huffing and puffing close behind us, a thought crossed my mind:

'That might've been the last time I ever get to speak to Reiko…'

I still remembered how the light used to fall on her hair as we lay in bed together at her dad's house. The streets were always so quiet first thing in the morning. No one was up, not even the mayor, so no one ever saw me sneaking out. We were like two nightbirds. If some random idiot hadn't reported me 'breaking in' through the window no one would ever have known about our relationship, and we'd still be together now. I almost convinced her to join me in the forest when I finally decided to up and leave, but that wasn't the life she wanted. She was never really an outsider, not like me. She _belonged _in the town. For a while I thought I did, too… but the other residents taught me otherwise. I don't blame her though. She was right to stay. It made sense. And honestly, just being real with you, I can't hate a girl with a face as pretty as hers. Hell, until I met Ai, Reiko was the most beautiful woman I'd ever _met_. She probably wouldn't feel good knowing she'd been beaten by a girl completely covered in burn scars, but she knows what I'm like. I like 'em weird.

"Saki, wait!"

"What?" I replied, looking over to see Ai's face contorted in horror.

Then it hit me. A full-frontal body blast from one of the trees on the edge of the forest. From the side of my head right down to my crotch, a big ole pole of pain piercing right through my body.

I hit the deck. Ai was pulling on my arm but I was too frazzled to move. That's what I get for being sentimental.

"The guards!" I garbled, "they're gonna catch up! You've gotta run!"

"They're gone," her voice was quiet, calm.

"Gone…? What do you mean they're gone?"

But sure enough, when the world had stopped spinning and my legs weren't made of jello, I could see with my own two eyes: we were alone. The only thing stirring the long grass was the wind. Even the night sky was empty save for the bright, blue moon. I guess they got fed up of chasing us.

I never intended us to travel back through woods at night. Not in the flooded, muddy shithole state it was in, especially. The moon can only penetrate so far down into the thick, tangled canopy. In some parts it was almost pitch darkness. Good luck navigating through _that _with just moonlight to guide you.

Except things had changed. Now we didn't need the moon's help. We had our _own _moonlight, and between us we were easily as bright as a dozen torches.

"I shoulda visited that apothecary sooner," I joked, "this shit ain't half bad."

"Do you think it's permanent?"

"If it is, that means you don't have to go back, right?"

She kept her eyes focused ahead and continued walking, silent. The journey was endless. Every step was like wading through liquid cement. Rivers flowed where pathways once were, the few pieces of solid ground that remained were mere islands in-between murky debris-filled lakes. In the darkness, the light from our bodies sparkled bright white in the muddy water surrounding us, like reverse shadows.

"I'll tell ya one thing, Ai, we're gonna sleep well tonight."

Then, as if to spite me, a deep rumble of thunder rolled through the air. 'Typical,' I thought, 'of course it chooses _now_ to start raining again'. We heard the rain long before we saw or felt it, hammering against the leaves far above. When we reached a clearing it was obvious it was more than just a brief shower. It was absolutely pouring down, just like yesterday.

Ai was shivering.

"You cold?"

I knew she wasn't. When she didn't reply, I grabbed her hand.

"Don't worry, we're almost home now," I said, although I actually had no idea how close we were. In the end we trudged through the waterlogged maze of trees and gloop for hours without progress till finally I couldn't take it any more.

"How the fuck are we not there yet!?" I yelled as rain pummelled my head.

Lightning shot across the clouds looming above us. Ai practically leapt out of her skin.

"You said we were almost home!"

"I thought we were! I really did! We shoulda been indoors ages ago!"

The area we were standing in looked just as muddy and rain-wrecked as the rest of the forest. I didn't have a fucking clue where we were. Even with my bioluminescence, I couldn't see shit in the rain. We ambled half-blind towards a denser patch of trees nearby to take shelter. As we got under the cover of the thick leaves I heard a _crunch _under my boots.

"What the fuck?"

I looked down and saw it was a thin plank of wood. It was charred black, like half-used firewood. 'That's weird,' I thought, 'where the hell did that come from?'

As I crouched down to get a better look I noticed sharp glimmers of light in the dirt. Broken glass. I let my eyes wander and as I did I spotted a doorknob sticking up out of the mud along with more scorched wood splinters.

"Saki, what are you looking at?"

I stepped out into the rain, my gaze focused on my feet. I followed the glass.

"Saki? Saki!?"

Within seconds I found a cooking pot, upturned and buried under some stones, and a blanket being whipped back and forth like an embattled flag in a nearby tree. Just a few feet away from that was a mattress. That looked like it'd been set on fire too.

"Saki for god's sake what're you-"

At that point even she could see it.

"The hut…" I said under my breath, "it's…"

I couldn't take my eyes off my axe, lying there in the mud next to what was left of the fireplace.

"What happened?" Ai asked.

"Looks like it burned down."

"But we put the fire out before we left!"

Another stab of lightning pierced the sky, its thunder rolling through the forest like a stampede.

"It has nothing to do with the fireplace and you know it."

I wrapped my fingers round the axe handle and lifted it from the mud. It was cold and damp, but it was familiar. It was mine. It was _still _mine.

"They must've really wanted to piss me off. Well they succeeded."

"This must be a mistake. This can't be it."

I gritted my teeth, "No mistake. They destroyed everything. I guess I'm gonna just have to make a whole new house out of fucking nothing."

"This is all my fault."

"What?"

I turned to face Ai. Her hair was like a waterfall in the rain.

"I've caused you nothing but trouble since I came down to Earth."

"That's not true."

"I even destroyed that tree you like."

"By accident! I don't blame you for that."

"You never told me that it bothered you but I could tell."

"Look, a lot of shit happened, alright, but I'm over it now. This isn't the time."

"I should've gone back to the moon when things started going wrong. It was selfish of me to stay here."

"Stop talking like that! You don't mean that shit!"

"I'm being serious, Saki."

"No, you're being _crazy_. You can't seriously _want_ to go back to those fuckers up there."

"Of _course_ I don't want to go! But what other choice do I have?"

"You can _stay here_, you moron! You think going will help me? I've already lost everything. If you go… I'll…I-"

"If I stay things will only get worse."

I laughed bitterly, "Worse? What could possibly be worse than this?"

"You could die."

"Hah! At this point that'd be an improvement, honestly…"

The rain hissed in my ears. This wasn't how it was meant to be. Things had seemed so straightforward before. Just chop trees, kick ass, day in, day out. No worries, no surprises. Life has no complications when you live on your own. Being alone is easy… or that's what I used to think. Actually it's a fucking nightmare, a dead weight sitting on your chest, crushing the life out of you one day at a time. I wasn't going back to that again. No way in hell.

"Fine," I sighed, "if you think returning to the moon will fix it, I'm not gonna stop you…"

I could see the hurt in her eyes.

"…but you're not going on your own."

"...wait, what?"

"I'm saying I'm coming with you. If those bastards think they can fuck up my life from the shadows they've got another thing coming."

"Is that even possible?"

"I'm _glowing_, ain't I?"

"But we're not even sure how it works. I was just going to go back to that tree and wait for the storm to take me. It's barely a plan."

"What other options do we have? I mean these guys fucking love lightning, right? Might as well give it a shot."

"No you don't understand. My body isn't like yours. I've already survived one lightning bolt."

"Barely."

"But I _survived_. You could die in an instant."

"We don't know what these assholes are capable of. Either one of us could get fried this time. I'm not gonna leave you to face that on your own. Besides, you hate storms. Why the hell would you wanna endure that by yourself?"

"But-"

"No buts. Whatever we do, we do it together."

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her so close that I could feel her breath on my neck, "Ai, listen to me. I love you. I don't wanna be here without you. You're more important to me than some glorified shed ever could be. I've spent so many years feeling alone. Even among other people I was alone. I'm always alone. You're the first person who's ever really understood me. When people talk to me, they have that look in their eyes, you know? Like I'm from another planet. They look at me and they don't see another person. They just see a weirdo, a pain in the ass who won't shut up. But not you. You look at me and there's no judgement in your eyes. Do you know how good that feels?"

"…I do now."

I smiled, "I never knew I was capable of feeling this way about another person till I met you."

I leaned back so that we were eye-to-eye again, cupped her soaking wet cheeks with my soaking wet hands and said, "That's why I can't let you go on your own. I can't live without you, Ai. Without you... I have no reason to _be _alive."

"Saki..."

"Either that fucking lightning bolt takes us both to the moon together, or it kills us... together. What do you say?"

Her lips curled into that beautiful wry smile, and she said, "Let's go give 'em hell."

"Now _that's _what I'm talkin' about!"

* * *

Snakes and lizards and birds and boars and just about every damn thing with a pulse was rushing through the rapidly flooding forest as if Noah's Ark had just crash landed nearby. We were up to our knees in it most of the time, and by it I mean mud and bird shit. Even the vultures stopped by to say hello, and again, by say hello I mean take a shit right in front of us.

"I'm not a toilet, you prick!"

By the time we finally made it to the silver tree we were soaked to the bone, shivering, coated in mud and shit and generally in about as a shitty a mood as you could ever imagine being in. I was primed and ready to sink my axe into some fucker's skull. I'd never killed a person before but hey, there's always a first time, right?

Just like before, somehow the silver tree had withstood the wind and rain and kept its poise, standing tall on the little hill in the clearing. Its glow was gone and its leaves were dead, but I could still see the beauty it once possessed. To me it would always be beautiful.

"You've been with me through thick and thin buddy. I just need one last favour from you, if you don't mind."

We sat down right at the spot where the lightning bolt that Ai arrived in split the tree in two. In one hand I held my axe, and in the other I held Ai's hand.

"It's gonna be okay," I reassured her.

She was shaking all over, "Y-Yeah."

"If you can land in this tree, you can fly back up out of it no problem."

"Mmm," she mumbled. I probably could've said any nonsense and she wouldn't have heard me.

Now her teeth were chattering. It crossed my mind that if the lightning didn't kill us, we were probably both gonna die of pneumonia. At least _I _would, anyway.

Ai yelped as another explosion of thunder rushed through the forest. Then I felt the hairs on the back of my neck begin to stand on end. Something was coming. I wrapped my arms around Ai.

"S-Saki?"

"We've gotta keep warm, don't you think? It's cold out here."

The wind started to pick up. Clouds swirled overhead, blocking out the stars but not the moon, which stared down at us from the darkness. The clouds formed a whirlpool around it, churning closer and closer to the earth with every rotation. I looked at Ai. She had both her eyes closed, thank fuck. Suddenly several bolts of lightning shot down into the forest one after the other after other. Thunder filled the air, suffocating all other sound. Ai started sobbing uncontrollably.

"Oh god Saki I can't do this! I'm not ready! I don't want it to hit me, I don't wanna see it! I can't-"

"I'm here with you Ai. I'm right here. That lightning bolt ain't gonna do shit to you, you understand me? It ain't gonna do _shit _because it has to go through _me _first, and _nothing_ is getting through me, _nothing_. I won't let it hurt you."

She pressed her face into my chest. She was squeezing my shirt so tightly she was almost tearing the buttons out. I leaned my head on hers so that her hair stroked my cheeks, and I kissed her gently.

"Ai," I said, "I love you. I promise you'll be safe."

Then it came. A white hot flash searing the air, searing my skin, blinding my eyes. I screamed, but I couldn't hear myself over the thunder's roar, which was so deep and booming that it shook every damn bone in my body. I held Ai as tight as I could. Nothing was gonna take her from me, not even death.

"You son of a bitch!" I roared into the blistering heat, "If I survive this, I'm gonna fucking _kill_ you!"

Then everything was darkness.


	4. The Dark Side of The Moon

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Zombie Land Saga or any of its characters. This work is a fan-work offered free of charge, and I make no money from it whatsoever.**

_A/N: This is the big one :D I've loved writing this. I don't know exactly why my brain thought to make Saki a lumberjack but I'm so glad it did. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it :) For my next fics for ZLS I'm thinking of writing some stuff from Junko's POV, as well as Ai's, cos there's not a huge amount for them (although Saki will always be my favourite character to write, I can already tell)._

_Also, I know I should've capitalised 'the Moon' as well as 'the Earth' but I've done it the wrong way for all the other chapters and it'd be a pain to fix, so it's wrong in this one as well. Please forgive that error xD_

_Thanks for reading!  
_

* * *

**Chapter 4: The Dark Side of The Moon**

* * *

I woke up on my back. The stars were still out, little pinpricks in the black sky, but the clouds were gone. So was the moon. Then I remembered-

"Ai!"

I shot up and quickly looked all around me. Ai was on the floor, sleeping. Dead…? No, her chest was moving. I crawled over to her and shook her gently.

"Ai… Ai, wake up!"

Her eyelids fluttered.

"Saki?"

I leaned down and smacked my lips into hers.

"You're alive…" I said, breathless, "you're still here."

She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me in for another, softer kiss. The delicate touch of her tongue against mine set my whole body on fire; waves of sensation rolling over every inch of me. All too soon she broke the kiss and moved her hands the back of my head, playing with my hair. As I gazed into her eyes, it was almost like seeing her for the first time. I let my fingers trace the scars on her face; pink, blotchy rivers carved into the surface of her pale skin. Maybe it sounds crazy, but to me, each and every one of those scars was beautiful. Every part of her was beautiful. In that moment I just knew… there was no one in this world that I'd ever loved more.

"Saki," she whispered. I felt shivers run down my spine.

"I'm listenin'."

She started pulling me closer again. I closed my eyes, expecting another kiss.

"We're not alone right now."

Without thinking I stiffened up.

"What!?"

"Shh! Not so loud!"

"Is it close by? How big is it?"

"Uh, big, I think?"

"You _think_?"

"It's kind of far away."

"Well then why are we whispering?"

"So that it can't _hear _us, dummy."

"So that _what_ can't hear us?"

"I dunno, maybe guards? I can hear footsteps."

"Guards? What guards?"

"Lots of them hang around outside the castle, patrolling the perimeter."

"Ai I'm sorry but, what the fuck are you talking about?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you _mean _what do I mean? You're making no sense."

"Haven't you realised where we are?"

I turned my head.

"No, Saki, you've gotta stay still just in case-"

And there it was. The Earth. A shimmering blue beach ball suspended in nothingness.

"Wow… holy shit, we actually made it."

"Look, you need to hide. The people here don't like visitors. They might even kick you off the moon."

I laughed, "Hah! Let 'em try, see how that works out for 'em."

"Saki I'm serious, if my father finds us now-"

The sudden crunch of heavy footsteps was followed by a voice that sounded like it belonged to a very punchable face,

"If he finds you indeed, your highness."

The voice belonged to a tall, spindly dude in bone-white armour. My instincts weren't wrong, he had a face even a mother would punch.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am Yashiro, servant to his royal majesty, King Mizuno the sixth."

"Well you can tell the king thanks but no thanks."

"Hmph! I'm afraid not. The king was very insistent."

"And so am I, you annoying stick insect. Can't you see I'm busy making out with the princess right now?"

His face shrivelled up in disgust.

"So you're the vermin that led her highness astray? I wondered what was causing that _stench _in the air."

I got to my feet and squared off with him. He towered above me, but I wasn't intimidated.

"My name is Nikaido Saki. **Nikaido. Saki.** I don't care how big you think you are, you self-important bundle of twigs; kings and paupers all look the same when they're six feet under. So go on, call me vermin again, and then maybe I'll give your face a little home improvement."

"I'll make sure the jailers know your name when they throw you in prison for your insolence, Earthling."

"Alright, don't say I didn't fucking warn you!"

"Saki, wait!"

Ai's voice froze me in place. She stood beside me, her hand on my shoulder,

"I take it father wants to see me?"

"He has requested that I bring you to the court immediately," he replied, looking pleased with himself.

She sighed, "Very well."

They started walking. I grabbed her hand,

"Very well!? Very well my _ass_!"

The king's servant frowned at me, "If you won't come peacefully then I shall be forced to summon the guards."

"Ai, I could take this guy. I mean look at him! We haven't gotta listen to his shit!"

She was shaking. She was trying to hide it, but she couldn't hide it from me, "Saki, I can handle this."

"Right out the gate they're threatening to set the guards on us. It's only gonna go downhill from here."

"I know what I'm doing."

"Ai-"

"Ahem!" tutted the glorified butler, "if you're _quite _done!"

I grabbed him by the throat and dragged his head down, "Now listen here dipshit! I don't care how far you've stuck your nose up the king's ass, but I finish talking when I god damn _feel _like it!"

"Saki, stop!"

The servant and I both looked in Ai's direction.

"Please," she begged, "let him go. Let's just do what he says for now."

"I don't trust him. He's got some fucking trick up his sleeve, I just know it."

"Then trust _me_. We're in this together, right?"

I released Yashiro's scrawny neck, "If you insist…"

He brushed himself down and readjusted his outfit, "Now if you will _please _follow me, _without _the commotion…"

I gritted my teeth and kept my mouth shut. There was plenty of time to get my own back. Ai wasn't stupid. If she wanted to meet the king then so be it.

Yashiro led us down a long road made of white bricks to a stretch of gargantuan bone-white castle walls, where we entered though an off-white gate into a grey-white courtyard filled with statues made of white marble. Moon people were milling about in uniformly white apparel doing whatever it is moon people do, and alongside them hopped snow-white bunny rabbits, a lot cuter than the sabretooth rabbits back home. Did I mention everything was white?

"Why is everything white? Did you guys have a disagreement with a rainbow or somethin'?"

The king's servant scowled at me, "I think you'll find that the colour white encompasses every possible colour on the spectrum."

"Ha ha, very funny, smartass. You know that's not what I meant."

Ai was more understanding, "My father doesn't like seeing too much colour around the palace. He says it's overwhelming and gaudy."

"He sounds like a barrel of laughs."

The palace was just as colourless as everything else. From the outside it looked like the upturned skeletal remains of some huge beast. Spikes and prongs and things stuck out of it, piercing the sky. Serious-looking bearded faces were carved into the outside of the building. I got a shock as we passed through a series of grey torii gates and reached the palace entrance.

"Holy shit, it's blue!"

It was the most intense blue I'd ever seen. A dark, vivid ultramarine that made the entrance look like the opening to a deep well. The golden door handles seemed to float on top of the door itself, suspended in mid-air. On either side of the colourful anomaly were two pale white guards in pale white armour. With a nod from the king's servant they pulled the doors open and we stepped inside.

I wasn't ready for the king's court. I knew it'd be white, but I figured it'd be boring like the rest of the castle was. Instead I was confronted with a huge, open space. It was like a football field, filled with ornate statues lining the walls and elaborate patterns all along the tiled floor. A white carpet stretched into the distance. Running alongside it were blue torches on thin marble stands. They weren't lit by fire, but by some weird ooze which floated in little circles in the air.

Ai looked at me over her shoulder, "Let me do the talking. "

I sighed, "Alright, I'll do my best."

That seemed to satisfy her. Yashiro led us down the carpet. The court seemed to be completely empty apart from us, and presumably the king, though I couldn't see him from where we were. Eventually we stopped in front of a normal-sized throne sandwiched between two gargantuan statues of dudes in fancy armour.

"So where's the king then?"

The servant shh'd me, "Have some patience, would you?"

The urge to punch him in the mouth was almost irresistible, but resist it I did, just long enough for an old dude with a cane to materialise onto the throne in a puff of (white) smoke.

"Whoa! You guys can teleport?"

"There's a secret passage built into the seat," Ai whispered, "if you push the right button you can-"

"Silence!" the king bellowed, "you will _not _reveal palace secrets to an outsider!"

'Can't believe I fell for such a dumb trick…' I thought, though I kept my lips sealed.

"I found them lying in Aristarchus' crater, your majesty," the servant began, "I didn't see any others."

"Good work…uhm… uhhh, what's your name again?"

"It's Yashiro, sire."

"Ah yes. Well, well done. You can return to your normal duties now."

"I was rather hoping you'd-"

"I said you can _return_ to your _duties_."

"Well you see it's that, I thought that maybe perhaps… that is to say I was rather hoping you might… reward…me…?"

"Ugh, fine, _thank you_, Yamato. Now, move along before I lose my patience."

"It's Yash-"

"I said _MOVE_!"

Yashiro nearly jumped out of his skin. Wasting no time at all he dutifully scuttled off back down the carpet, shaking from head to toe. Somehow it wasn't as satisfying as I wanted it to be. There's no pleasure in seeing one asshole get shot down by an even bigger one.

"Now," the king continued, turning his attention to Ai, "I am very disappointed in you, young lady. _Very _disappointed."

"I've done nothing wrong," she replied.

"Oh really? Is that how you see it? Your self-importance is astonishing."

I dug my fingernails into my palm. 'I can't believe this old fart has the nuts to complain about _self-importance_'.

He drummed his fingers on the arm of his throne, glowering at Ai, "I suppose it was all just a game to you, wasn't it? So did you enjoy your little _trip_, hm?"

She stared back at him, "As a matter of fact, I did."

"Well isn't that _wonderful_," he sneered, "I'm glad you had fun disrupting everything for us up here while you frittered away your time on that monkey planet."

"I wouldn't have to disrupt things if you'd just _listen_-"

"Do you know how worried your mother was? How worried _I _was?"

"You don't care about me."

"That's hurtful, Ai. I'm your father. Of course I care about you. I want to see you become the upstanding princess you were _born _to be."

"I told you I don't want to marry that prince."

"But it _has _to be you. The heavens have ordained it. _I _have ordained it."

She laughed bitterly, "If the heavens wanted me to marry him they shouldn't have made me a lesbian."

"Hmph! More excuses!"

It took everything I had not to punch him right then and there.

"Of course you don't believe me," Ai said, folding her arms, "well I'm telling the truth, whether you like it or not."

"Why do you commit so much energy into frustrating me?"

"I could ask you the same question."

He looked at me. I gave him the dirtiest stare I could muster.

"I take it this is your girlfriend?"

Ai grabbed my hand, "Yes, and I love her."

The king stroked his beard, "Would you like to marry her? Spend your life with her?"

He had a nasty look in his eyes. I could feel sweat lining my palms.

"Well, yes."

"And that's why you brought her here?"

"You forced me to bring her here. You tried to _kill _me."

"I did no such thing!"

"How can you say that!? I would've died if not for Saki."

"You would've died because of your own foolishness! None of us can survive away from this planet!"

"_I_ can, now."

"Is that your girlfriend's doing as well, is it?"

"Yes, she-"

He pointed to the scars etched into her face, "Did she do _that_ to you, too?"

"No, that was-"

"Just _look _at you!" he roared, his voice filling the entire chamber, "Turning up like this without even an _apology_!"

"Excuse me!?"

"I _knew _this would happen, as soon as you left. I told your mother 'she will not survive that journey unscathed' and I was right! Do you have any idea what you've done!? You were my most beautiful daughter! How am I supposed to get anyone to marry you now!? I can't believe you've done this to me. My own daughter…"

"I'm-"

"No, I'm quite done listening to your nonsense! I thought you'd understand what you've put us through, but no, you only care about yourself. You shall go to your room and think about what you've done. And _you_," he got off his throne and pointed his finger right in my face, "you should be executed for defiling my daughter, you disgusting, treacherous-"

Look, I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it when I swung for his face. I couldn't help it when I threw my whole body into it and broke his nose almost immediately. You telling me you wouldn't? There's no way you wouldn't pounce on him as he fell to the ground and start knocking out his teeth. And look, it's not like you wouldn't throw in a black eye for good measure, right? I mean that's just common sense. You might _think _you'd stop there, that you wouldn't wrap your hands around his neck and start hammering his skull into the ground, but we both know you'd be lying. You'd be lying if you said you wouldn't get up and start stomping on his chest, too. How would you resist the temptation? You wouldn't. I refuse to believe otherwise.

Needless to say I didn't resist anything, not even a little. The only thing I resisted was the guards. There were a lot of them. Like, a _lot _of them. They had to carry me out like people carry crowdsurfers. There were two guys for each of my limbs.

"Where the hell did you all come from?"

Turns out there were secret passages hidden _all_ the way along the king's court. I found out cos we went back through one. I could hear Ai calling out to me, but then the door shut behind us. It really did look just like a wall.

The jail was as white as the rest of the place. Even the bars were white. The only thing that wasn't white was the toilet, which was jet black. I had the cell to myself. The guards took turns watching me, swapping out every few hours. When I needed to shit I made sure be as noisy about it as I possibly could, but it didn't seem to faze the girl on duty at the time. She was a strange one. Everyone else on this planet was white all over, but this girl had vivid, red hair. She had a nice chest on her too.

"Hey," I said, walking up to the cell bars, "what's your name, good lookin'?"

"I-I'm not supposed to talk to you."

"Who's gonna know? It's just us, right?"

She looked side to side.

"See?" I continued, "I'm right, ain't I? Aren't you curious about me? I'm from the Earth, you know. I travelled up here on a lightning bolt."

That got her attention. She crept over to the bars. I could've grabbed her right then and choked her out, stolen her keys, stolen her uniform even. I thought about it. But she wasn't like the others. She had an honest look in her eyes.

I extended my hand, "I'm Saki, nice to meet ya!"

She timidly gave my hand a little shake, then quickly brought her arms back to her sides.

"I'm not gonna bite," I grinned, "not unless you ask me to!"

"I'm Sakura."

"Sakura, eh? That's a good name. It suits you."

She forced a smile.

"Thanks."

"If you're wondering why I'm here, it's cos your king is a bit of a dick."

"He doesn't like people trespassing on the planet."

"He didn't like me making out with his daughter either."

She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.

"You did _what_!?"

"Yeah man, me and Ai have totally fucked, too. I've seen everything."

Her face went as red as her hair.

"You've, no, you cant… with princess _Ai_? How…? Why?" she asked.

"Whaddya mean, _why_?"

"I mean, well, you're both girls-"

"You saying you've never even thought about it?"

"W-Well I-"

"Not even once?"

"Maybe once, maybe…"

"Maybe once, huh?"

"Or less."

"Less than once?"

"Well, no, I mean-"

"Who's your crush?"

"I, I don't, I didn't, there's no crush, I, oh my…"

"Alright, alright, slow down there sweet cheeks, or else you'll fry that egg-head of yours."

"Egg-head!? Does my head really look like an egg?"

"Only a little…" I said, as I let my arms slip through the bars, towards the keys tied to her waist, "but I mean it in a good way."

"Eggs aren't very cute, though."

"Now that's where you're wrong, Sakura…" I flashed her another grin, feeling the smooth metal of the keys between my fingertips, "eggs are _very _cute. I mean they're small, and round, and they're kinda pretty in a way, don't you think?"

"You're just saying that."

"I never lie, baby. Do you think her highness Princess Ai would've fallen for a liar?"

"Well…"

"Okay, maybe that was a dumb question. But I can assure you, I'm not lying. I'm being one-hundred percent real with you here. You're ten out of ten, drop-dead gorgeous any day of the week. If I wasn't taken, I'd date you in a heartbeat."

Her eyes were wide and her lips were trembling. I had her, I had her right where I wanted her.

"I… don't swing that way."

"You sure you don't?"

I winked, and with the keys now in my hand, slipped back into the far corner of my cell.

"I'm feeling kinda tired now. Been nice chattin' with ya egg-head."

"But you said you'd tell me about Earth!"

"I will! As soon as I wake up!"

"But-"

"Goodnight, Sakura. If it even is night right now."

I crawled into bed and closed my eyes. I was tired, but I had no intention of sleeping. I just needed to wait till one of the guards got sloppy and wandered off while on duty. Maybe it wouldn't happen, maybe it'd_ never_ happen, but I had the keys now - everything else was just a matter of time…

…and that time was 'no time at all'. As soon as I'd (accidentally) fallen asleep someone started shaking my shoulder.

"Huh?" I grumbled, "unless you wanna die, I suggest you leave me the fuck alone."

"That's a fine way to speak to the man who's saving you."

"Yeah yeah, you stuck up piece of-"

Then I realised what he just said, "did you say you were saving me?"

I opened my eyes. Staring down at me was a tall dude with brown hair. His clothes were white just like everyone else's, except he was wearing a cape… and sunglasses.

"Why the shades, dude?"

"What? Is it a crime to be fashionable?"

I didn't dignify that with an answer.

"Anyway," he continued, "we'd better hurry. The guards won't be gone for long."

"I'm amazed they left me unguarded at all."

"My natural charms were just too powerful."

"Your natural charms, huh? Coulda fooled me."

"Naturally, seeing as you're a fool."

"You're one to talk."

"Now come on, we need to-"

"Hold up, hold up. Why should I even trust you? I don't need you, you know. I already stole the cell key from one of the guards earlier."

He gave me a smug grin, "Why should you trust me? Perhaps because I'm the prince your girlfriend was meant to marry."

* * *

"Her room is right round this corner," the prince whispered, "but I think someone's in there."

"Well _duh_, Ai's in there."

"No you idiot, I mean someone _else_."

Muffled voices echoed down the hall.

"Mother, _please_," Ai's voice, "she's not like that normally."

"She nearly _killed _your father, Ai," her mother's voice, much older, very stiff, "I can't possibly ask him to approve her _marrying _you after that."

"But he started it!"

"You _did _leave without warning us."

"I gave you plenty of warning. I _told _you I didn't want to marry Kotaro."

"But he's such a nice young man…"

The prince nodded in approval.

"He may be nice, but I don't love him. At all. And he doesn't love me."

"Love takes time."

"I'm a lesbian."

"Sweetheart…"

"I'm not discussing this again. You didn't listen the first time."

"Lots of young women experiment."

"That's right, and then I realised I didn't like boys."

"He'd make a great husband."

"I don't know why this is so important to you both."

"You know your father, dear. Once he has something in his head, he has to see it through."

"But this isn't his life!"

"He's only thinking of your best interests."

"Then why did he try and kill me on Earth?"

"He would never do something like that. He loves you."

"He tried to drain my soul out of me. Then he destroyed my girlfriend's house."

"The planet acts on its own, Ai. That was nothing to do with your father."

"I don't believe you."

"I wouldn't lie to you."

"No, you wouldn't, but you're so blind you can't see what a vile person Father is."

"That's no way to speak about your own father."

"He's my father only in name. He's never been a good parent to me."

"Ai! How can you say such a thing!?"

"As far as I'm concerned, he can go fuck himself."

Now it was my turn to nod in approval. Hell yeah, Ai.

"Young lady you need to remember who you are. That is no way for a princess to speak!"

"To hell with being a princess!"

"Ai-"

"Leave me alone! I thought maybe you'd understand, but I should've known better."

"Ai, I love you. You know that."

The bedroom door muffled Ai's sobs, but I could still hear them, every single one.

"Then help me… please…"

"I'm sorry, sweetheart."

"Mother…"

"I'll speak to you in the morning."

"Mother, wait!"

The door creaked open. Footsteps headed towards us.

"Shit!"

"Quiet, you buffoon! If she hears us-!"

But she walked right past us, lost in her own thoughts.

I resisted the urge to sigh in relief. The prince and I exchanged looks, then we darted round the corner before Ai's mom had a chance to do a double-take and snuck into the bedroom.

She didn't hear us as we entered through the still-open door. She was lying on her bed, her face buried in a pillow. Her room was enormous. Her room was bigger than Reiko's dad's entire house. It was full of books and stuffed toys and fluffy pillows - it even had a whole grand piano just sitting in the corner. I motioned to the prince to stay quiet, and I crept up to her bed. I had to climb onto it, it was so big. That was when she noticed me.

"Saki!?" she gasped, her face damp with tears.

"Ai…"

I wrapped my arms around her and we collapsed onto the bed together. I kissed her, her tear-soaked cheeks dampening mine as I hugged her tightly.

"I fuckin' love you, Ai."

"I thought I'd never see you again," she said, her eyes still red from all the crying earlier.

"Hah! You think a few metal bars could hold me? Though I didn't do it on my own."

Her brows furrowed in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"She's talking about _me_," said the prince, striding over to the bed.

Ai couldn't believe what she was seeing, "Kotaro… you helped her?"

"Without me, she'd still be in there."

"All right bub, slow down. I stole the key from one of guards all by myself no problem. You just expedited the process."

He laughed, "She's quite a catch, isn't she?"

Ai squeezed me against her like a big teddy bear, "She's one of a kind. Thank you. I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

"The king dragged us both into this when he insisted on our marriage. I want it about as much as you do."

"I thought so. Even with those sunglasses on, you give away everything with your face."

"I do?"

"Why do you even wear those?" I interjected.

He ignored me, "The truth is, I have someone else I love. Alas, she's a commoner, so courting her would be strictly forbidden."

"Who is it?" Ai asked.

"You wouldn't know her. She's one of the guards. She probably has no idea how I feel about her."

I sat up, "Which guard?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What's her name?"

"I understand you just came out of the jail but we have a _lot _of guards here. Really, you wouldn't know her."

"Try me. Come on."

"All right. Her name is Sakura."

"…"

"Exactly, like I said, you wouldn't-"

"The one with red hair, right? And a nice rack?"

Ai poked me, "Saki! Seriously? A nice rack?"

"Hey, it's true! Don't shoot the messenger!"

The prince froze.

"How do you know her?"

"I talked to her while I was locked up. She's the one I stole the keys from."

Suddenly there was a noise outside, in the hall. Panicked voices, heading our way.

Ai shoved me down onto the bed, "You have to hide. Get under the covers."

"What's happening!?"

"Just do it!"

She dragged the blankets over me and jammed my face into her lap - not a bad position all things considered. Then I felt something heavy thump down right next to my gut.

"Is that you, lover-boy?"

"Keep your voice down!" Ai chided.

Then BANG, the door was kicked open.

"Your highness! …Uh, _highnesses_," a deep voice, "there has been an escape at the prison. We thought the prisoner in question might've come here, but…"

"No need to worry," said the prince, "I've been here the whole time. Princess Ai is quite safe, and we've had no visitors. In fact we were just discussing our marriage arrangements, in _detail_, so if you don't mind…"

"Oh, uh, yes, yes of course your highness, I do apologise."

The door clicked shut. Outside the bedroom boots stomped up and down the hall, then silence.

"What do you want to do?" the prince asked.

"I'm not sure… but there's nothing here for me now, not as long as my father rules this planet."

"So you want to leave, then?"

"Well, I _want _to leave, but I _can't_. If I stay away too long, I'll die."

"It's a myth, you know. There's nothing stopping us surviving on other worlds."

"I got very weak on Earth, Kotaro. Even without exposing myself to the moon. I managed to get around it by drinking some… strange medicine, which I'd rather not talk about, but I doubt it's permanent."

"You were too close to home. The mechanisms designed to keep us stuck here have a long reach. If you went far enough away, they'd have no effect."

"But how do you know that?"

"I've been thinking about running away myself. With Sakura. Just a pipe dream really. But I looked into it, read about the history of our people. The truth isn't even well hidden, people just don't question the lie."

"Damn, that's deep," I said from my vantage point from under the blankets.

He leapt off the bed, "Good god, I almost forgot you were there!"

I tossed the blankets off of me, "I'm gonna choose not to be insulted by that. Anyway, you say we can leave. How the hell do we do it?"

"By chariot. I have a big one. A really, really big one. Huge. I mean, it's impressive. It's also stocked with enough supplies to last you a year at _least_."

"Wait, you're letting us ride off in your chariot?" Ai asked, incredulous, "But what about you and Sakura?"

"I can build another one. A better one. Something truly fitting for her."

"Are ya sayin' she's fat?"

"Of course not, you fool!"

"Hey, chill out man, I was just-"

"Where do you keep it?" Ai interrupted.

"The chariot? It's where the others are, lined up near the castle's north entrance."

"The one we came in from?" I asked.

"No," Ai replied, "we came in from the south. You can't miss the north entrance - it's enormous."

"How many entrances does this place have!?"

"Just the two," answered Kotaro, "I can take you there, but we'll need to disguise your girlfriend first."

"Good point," Ai agreed, "she doesn't exactly blend in right now."

"Thanks…?"

"Would your clothes fit her, Ai?"

"Yeah, we're about the same size."

"Wonderful! It's settled then: you dress her up in one of your outfits, and I'll fetch some dye for her hair."

"Hang the fuck on!" I said, grabbing the prince's sleeve as he strolled towards the door, "you ain't touching my hair."

"No one on this planet has blonde hair but you."

"Your crush has red hair!"

"Yes, _red _hair."

"Well that's the same as blonde, ain't it?"

"No, it's not blonde."

"Don't try to be funny with me, Shades-"

"Shades? Really? You know my name by now."

"Can't I just wear a hat?"

"Well…"

"Actually," said Ai, darting over to one of her many wardrobes, "I do have something that might work…"

* * *

"Oh Ai, she looks perfect!"

"I look like a fucking idiot."

Ai rubbed my shoulder, "You look like you're from the moon."

"Did I stutter?"

The prince was beside himself with joy, "No one will ever guess you're from Earth in _that _outfit. The use of the headscarf is inspired, Ai! It's genius!"

"Thanks! I mean, it hides her hair."

"Completely!"

She kissed me on the cheek, "Don't worry, you still look just as cute as always."

"You're lucky that I love you."

The prince clapped his hands together, "Right! Let's not waste any more time, ladies! We only have one shot at this and the guards could return at any moment."

We snuck out into the hall. All three of us were dressed in white, matching the wallpaper, tiling, ceiling, doors, ornamental vases and light fixtures. We had enough co-ordination to give most ballet troupes a run for their money. I walked alongside Ai and the prince walked alongside me. We were a perfectly normal trio of perfectly normal people. We must've looked like a bunch of freaks. Thank fuck the hall was empty.

We passed through our first door. It opened without so much as a creak. I could hear my heartbeat, feel it pulsing behind my ears. The room beyond was full of servants shuffling to and from various ornate decorations. One of them saw us.

"P-Princess Mizuno!" he exclaimed, halfway through polishing a marble bust of the king, "You shouldn't be here, there's a criminal on the loose right now!"

Ai gave him a dismissive wave, "Don't worry, I can handle myself."

"But your highness!"

Then the prince swooped into action. He placed his fingers under the servant's chin and looked deep into his eyes (or I assume he did, as he still had those stupid sunglasses on), "She's under my protection. I'm not just a pretty face, you know. I can do a lot with these hands…"

The servant's eyes fluttered and he nearly fell flat on his ass, but Kotaro caught him before he hit the floor.

"Be careful," the prince smiled, "you wouldn't want to get hurt."

The rest of the palace caretakers didn't bother us as we passed through the room. No one seemed to wonder who I was, or if they did they didn't dare ask. Man, if I'd known disguises worked this well I would've used them when I visited Reiko.

"We're almost there," Kotaro explained after we'd been walking for a little while, "just through these doors and across the plaza."

"And then that's it?" I asked.

"That's it. You'll be free. The chariot will take you wherever you want to go. The rest is up to you."

"Wherever we want, huh…"

The doors opened to reveal the plaza. It stretched on forever, so vast that I could barely see the castle walls snaking along the horizon.

"Dude this isn't a plaza, this is like a fucking ocean."

"It's a landing strip. It has to be big enough for the chariots to come and go safely."

"Are we thinking of the same 'chariots' here? The kind horses pull around?"

He looked at me like someone had drawn 'kick me' on my forehead, "Well I can tell you that there are no horses involved in _my _chariot, that's for sure."

Unlike the other parts of the castle, the 'plaza' was completely dead. No moon people, no guards or servants, no anything. There was no sound either, no sound apart from the thump of our feet on the soft grey moondirt beneath us. I looked up at the sky. Every inch of it was littered with twinkling stars. I must've seen it countless times. The sky is always there, right above you, all around you. You get used to it. You stop seeing it. In that moment I felt like for the first time ever I was _really _looking at it, really seeing just how much stuff was actually _in _it. Pretty soon I'd be in it too. Up there with all those stars.

I felt my throat tighten.

"Can you see it?" Kotaro asked.

Ai gasped, "No… you've gotta be kidding. You don't mean _that _one? It really _is _big!"

He laughed, "I get that a lot."

I looked down at my feet. One in front of the other. The fancy royal shoes I was wearing were so pale they nearly blended in with the moon's gravel. My old lumberjack boots were shoved under Ai's bed, along with the rest of my outfit. My axe was who knows where. Probably still next to my silver tree.

Suddenly something grabbed my arm and started dragging me off to the side.

"Hey what the fuck!? Who the-"

"Calm down, calm down!"

It was Kotaro.

I yanked my arm out of his grasp, "Jeez, man, you could'a given me some warning."

"You're going the wrong way."

"Huh?"

"The chariot is this way," he said, pointing towards an enormous metal thing in the distance.

"_That's_ your chariot!?"

"Yes, I pointed it out earlier."

"I wasn't paying attention."

Ai's face was full of concern, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, of course I am! It's just a tense situation, you know? When someone starts pullin' on ya you've gotta react fast."

She took my hand in hers, "It's okay, Saki. I'm nervous too."

"I don't do nervous."

"Saki…"

"I'm not afraid."

I started walking, but Ai didn't let go. She was staring right into me.

"Alright Ai, look, it's just… a lot has happened to me, you know? A day ago I was up there, on Earth. Now I'm walking across the moon to ride some huge machine into nowhere. Can you blame me?"

"Of course I don't blame you."

"If I didn't wanna do this, I wouldn't. Trust me. I trusted you didn't I?"

"You did… up till you punched my father in the face."

I laughed, "Okay, you've got a point."

"He deserved it though. Thanks for standing up for me."

"If someone needs a punching, you can count on me."

"I'll bear that in mind," she replied, smiling, "Now, how's about we finally get off this rock?"

"Count me in."

Kotaro looked on, oozing with smugness, "Did you enjoy your little moment?"

"Don't get cocky, Shades, or I'll have to redecorate your face."

"I'm gonna be glad when I don't have to hear you calling me that terrible nickname anymore."

The chariot really was enormous; it was easily as big as a house. It looked nothing like any chariot I knew of.

"This," the prince said, slapping a huge round thing full of tiny knives, "is part of the jet propulsion system. It's got a lot of horses in it."

"You crammed horses into that!?" I asked in disbelief.

"It's a figure of speech. Horsepower is just a measurement, like feet or inches or furlongs."

"I don't get it."

"The whole thing is powered by a super solenoid engine using high-efficiency batteries. Keeps it ticking over for years and years before it needs to recharge. The batteries collect solar energy, so you'll want to park up near a star when she's running low."

"And you built all this by yourself?"

"I had a lot of free time."

"So… how the hell do we drive it?"

With a wry smile he replied, "It's surprisingly simple."

* * *

The chariot was even weirder on the inside than it was on the outside. The walls were patchwork, made out of different sheets of metal of various sizes and shapes. Every inch of it was glowing and flashing and twinkling. Metal gizmos whirred and grumbled, and the ground trembled beneath our feet whenever we took even a single step. It was intense. It was terrifying.

I loved it.

"Was your chariot like this, Ai?" I asked.

"No, mine was completely different…"

"It's state of the art," Kotaro explained, "not even the king realises what this chariot is capable of. Which is just how I like it. When you run away with this, he'll be none the wiser as to how you did it."

Ai stared out the chariot's window, "Won't he know you helped us?"

"I'll tell him you overpowered me. Given how badly Saki injured him, he'll probably believe it."

"I hope so."

"Anyway," the prince continued, "these are the controls."

Myself and Ai both stood either side of him while he explained.

"…and you pull this lever when you want to land. You can pull it while you're in the air but it won't do much."

"Which one makes it go fast again? I got lost halfway through," I asked.

"_This _one is for lightspeed. It's not the same as just 'going fast', though."

"Got it."

"Are you sure?"

"No, but I'll work it out."

Ai gave him a reassuring smile, "Don't worry, I'll remember."

He didn't look reassured, "You should know… I've only ever tested it on short flights. Even if you do everything perfectly I can't guarantee your safety."

"I understand."

"You still want to go?"

"What other choice do we have?"

She was right. If we stayed we'd both face the wrath of her old man, and the same went for trying to hide out on Earth. Escaping on the chariot was our only option. It was all or nothing.

"All right," he sighed, "I wish you all the best. Live well, and safe travels."

"Thank you Kotaro," Ai said, giving him a big hug.

"You're a good man, Shades," I added.

He nodded at me, "Take care of Ai for me."

"You bet."

As he left the chariot I strapped myself into one of the two seats at the front, where all the knobs and levers were. The entry door opened and closed with a smooth _whoosh_. Soft footsteps slapping on the metal floor told me Ai was coming to join me.

"Right," she said, "I guess this is it."

"This is it."

"How are you feeling?"

"Honestly? I'm shitting myself."

She placed her hand on mine. Her palm was sweaty.

"I'm scared too. But not as scared as I would be if you weren't with me."

Her eyes twinkled in the chariot's dim light. 'That's right', I told myself, 'I'm not alone. I can do this. This is nothing. This is fucking nothing. I can pilot this bucket of bolts no problem.'

I could feel my arms begin to shake, "L-Let's fucking do this shit!"

"Alright!" Ai yelled, "I'm starting the engines."

The jet propulsion whatchamacallits roared into life. I looked out the window and there was Kotaro, waving at us.

"We'll end up running over you if you stand there, you idiot," I mumbled under my breath.

"Engines are on. Releasing the brakes. Saki, did you fasten your seatbelt?"

"Yeah it's fastened, let's do it, come on."

"Okay, this is it."

The whole contraption was shaking from top to bottom. Everything was rattling and buzzing. The gizmo lights were so bright that I could barely see out the window anymore.

"Saki are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"When I tell you, pull that lever, okay?"

"What lever?"

"This one," she said, dragging my hand to the right place, "this one, and not before I say, alright?"

"Alright, got it."

I could barely hear myself think over the sound of the engines.

"Here we go. Three, two, one, and-"

Suddenly I was thrust back into my seat as the chariot rocketed forward, trashing the other chariots nearby.

"HOLY SHIT!"

We raced across the plaza. The world beyond the window was just a grey blur.

"Ai _Jesus Christ _why is it so fast?"

"I don't know!"

I kept my hand on the lever. The roar of the engines started to get higher and higher and higher.

"Do I pull it now!?"

"No!"

My teeth were smacking against each other as we bounced in and out of craters in the blink of an eye. I was squeezing the lever so hard my fingers were aching. Then we started to swerve.

"Ai!"

The force almost pulled me out of my seat, dragging me left then right as we careened out of control.

"I've got it, I've got it!" she yelled over the chainsaw buzzing of the chariot's interior. And she did. She had it. We stabilized and started gunning in a straight line for the horizon.

"Ai, why aren't we flying!?"

"It needs more speed!"

"_More _speed!?"

I saw the wall ahead of us. A line of bright white getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and in the centre of it the enormous north entrance, so big that I couldn't even see the top of it.

"We're gonna crash…" I muttered, but she couldn't hear me. "Holy fuck, this is it, this where I die."

'Fine' I thought, 'if that fucking gate is gonna kill me, then I'm gonna look it in the goddamn face while it does it. Motherfucking piece of-'

"Saki, pull the lever!"

"What!?"

"Pull it now!"

I yanked that son of a bitch down so hard I damn near tore my shoulder off. Immediately we started lifting off of the ground.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuck fuck fuck_!"

"We're flying! We're really flying!"

"Ai the wall! THE WALL!"

"I'm turning!"

"Turn _moWHOOAA!_"

The whole chariot twisted round as the gate bore down upon us. The only thing holding me in my seat was the seatbelt. Somehow Ai still had her hands firmly on the controls. I was screaming, she was screaming, all the gizmos were screaming and then WHOOSH, the gate shot by us… and that was it.

We'd done it. We were free.

"HELL YEAH BABY!"

"WOOOO!"

"WE DID IT! HOLY FUCK WE DID IT AI WE DID IT!"

"I CAN'T BELIEVE WE MADE IT!"

"GOD I COULD FUCKING KISS YOU!"

"SAKI WAIT I NEED TO FOCUS!"

We soared clean over the furthest edges of the castle, over the cold face of the moon and into the void beyond. The window became dark. Only stars and the infinity of space before us.

"I'm retracting the wheels."

The chariot shuddered as it drew the wheels back into itself.

"Saki, push that blue button over there."

"The big one?"

"Yes."

The whirring of the engines began to calm down to a low hum. The shuddering relaxed. The chair went from violently shaking me to gently massaging my back. I was completely drenched in sweat. Head to toe.

"Is that it?" I asked.

"Not quite."

The chariot veered to the left, bringing the Earth into our sights. We had no intention of landing there. According to Kotaro's calculations, if we skirted round it in just the right way, it'd shoot us off into space without us having to waste any of the chariot's energy. After that… well, after that we were on our own.

"Shouldn't take long for us to reach the spot," Ai said.

"Sure looks big huh? The Earth."

"I wish I could've explored it more."

"Nahh. The weather sucks and the locals are rude."

She grinned at me, "Does that include you?"

"Me? I'm from out of town, don't know what you're talking about."

I could still feel that emptiness in the pit of my stomach.

"Do you need me to do anything else? Push any buttons or anything?"

"No, you can relax now. I just have to steer us right and we'll be on our way."

"You sure?"

"Absolutely sure."

"Okay, no problem."

I tightened my seatbelt.

"Ai…"

"Yeah?"

"After we go round the Earth… what's next? What's after that?"

She leaned back in her seat, "I don't know… I guess we just… stay here?"

"In the chariot?"

"Yeah. Just you and me."

"Floating around in space together."

"Free."

Her skin was glowing again. Pale and bright, like the sunlight reflected off the Earth in the distance. She looked like an angel.

"I love you, Ai."

She smiled, "I love you too, Saki."

"And one more thing, before I forget."

"Yeah?"

"Can I take this headscarf off now?"


End file.
